Ep. 150: Tailoring Your Message for Maximum Impact

In this episode of "Definitely Maybe Agile," hosts Peter Maddison and David Sharrock dive deep into the critical skill of understanding and communicating with customers. They explore common pitfalls in messaging, the importance of tailoring communication to different audiences, and strategies for effectively conveying your value proposition. Whether you're a product owner, marketer, or anyone looking to improve their communication skills, this episode offers valuable insights on crafting messages that resonate with your target audience.

This week´s takeaways: 

• Understanding your customer is crucial for effective communication, both externally and within organizations.
• There isn't a single perfect message; successful communication often requires multiple tailored approaches.
• Focus on solving one specific problem for your customer rather than trying to address everything at once.

Stay tuned for more episodes that promise continued insights into effective agile and DevOps strategies. Your feedback and subscription are pivotal to our journey, so join us and become part of our growing community.

Chapters

• 0:04 Understanding Customers for Effective Messaging
• 12:38 Wrapping Up Definitely Maybe Agile

Transcript

Peter: 0:04

Welcome to Definitely Maybe Agile, the podcast where Peter Maddison and David Sharrock discuss the complexities of adopting new ways of working at scale.

Dave: 0:12

Hello, dave, how are you today, Peter? Good to see you again. You've had an exciting week, I believe.

Peter: 0:18

Yes, yes, it's been all sorts of fun and games for me in the past week, but I'm here now. I've made it, I'm in pretty much one piece and not too much pain, so that's a good thing.

Dave: 0:30

Without wanting to dig further into that comment, I'm just choosing to move past that. I'm glad you're okay first, but I think we're going to talk about customers now a little bit understanding your customer.

Peter: 0:42

Yes, so understanding your customer. This is an interesting one. I mean, it's a common mistake we see in all sorts of avenues, both inside the companies and outside the companies, when we're selling into them, where it's a looking at the company as a whole, as an entity, and not tailoring the messaging at all, or trying to sell everything to everyone. And you find yourself in this situation around. Well, how do I write that perfect message, the one message that's going to resonate with every single person?

Dave: 1:13

It's an interesting one because A it's hard to do right, so we don't like if we can come up with one message that we can use many times for different types of customers, personas, however we want to describe, that it feels like the right thing to do. How much of it do you think is actually that you just don't understand your customer. Therefore, the message doesn't resonate.

Peter: 1:31

That's an interesting question, because I think there's definitely a part of that. I think that maybe there's two parts to it. Really Not understanding your customer, that means that the your message misses who it is you're selling to like, like it. You're just off the mark entirely, I think. Uh, perhaps, if your message to, though, even if you understand your customer, if your message is too broad, uh, your customer may not understand it. If you're, if you're like, if you've you've gotten understanding your customer, but you think that, but you're, maybe it's a misunderstanding, because or you or you try to sell them everything and they're not interested in everything that you're selling. They're only interested in some parts of it.

Dave: 2:11

Yeah, I mean, I feel like there's this tool that everybody talks about, which is product market fit and this goal of getting to product market fit. Where I have my customer and their need and I understand what their need is, their desire, their pain points, whatever it is. I have a product that perfectly matches that need and then it feels like all we have to do is come up with a message that says hey, your need, your pain point over here, here's how we can solve it. And now we've got a marriage made in heaven, right, We've got some, everything kind of works.

Dave: 2:39

And I find I mentioned that because I find it really frustrating, because it gives the impression the product market fit conversation comes first and once we have an idea of what the need or the pain point is and we match it to some feature or functionality that we have, some offering we have, then it's just a messaging conversation and I think that's misleading. It isn't that simple. We don't exactly understand the need and we'll explore and we try and figure it out, but we don't quite get it. So it's a very much more like throwing darts at a dartboard in the dark, right, we don't know exactly when we get it. That's a different thing and then we can look backwards and say we've got product market fit. But I'm not sure you can start with it and just try and get the messaging right, I think you'd have to be very, very lucky.

Peter: 3:23

It's like, uh, you're trying to throw the dart at the dartboard from 100 meters away and hoping you hit bullseye. It's like, yeah, you might not very likely, but you might not the way I play darts for sure. No, no, me neither. I'm not a chance.

Dave: 3:38

Not enough beer in the world, uh well, and um, sort of getting back to our conversation about, about that messaging. I I feel it's a lot more like if we're in the the market to buy a car and we go to look for cars and we really like whatever the color is red, green, black, whatever, then all of a sudden, when we go on the highway we see dozens of these cars that we've picked out either the make or the color, whatever it is. That filter that's been turned on in our mind suddenly allows us to start spotting what we weren't thinking about before, and I feel that's what the messaging piece is. So then it becomes a question of not what is the messaging, but how do we understand or how do we identify what it is that people are looking for, because then it will resonate with the people who are looking for it. But we have to be specific. We can't just say, hey, we've got a car. We have to say we have a car of this make, this color, whatever it is, to resonate.

Peter: 4:30

Yeah, there has to be a messaging, a thing that appeals, a thing that captivates people towards that. Are they environmentally conscious and they want an EV, potentially, or is there something that's going to drive them towards this because more economical? Like, what are the things that are going to matter to that person, so you can tailor it to their needs? And I think for our audience typically. Like, how you apply this in organizations is interesting too, because, I mean, inside of an organization, you also have this need to be able to market things internally, to be able to go and find a hey who, how should I be evolving this product? Like what, what should it look like and how do I I starting from the point where I'm going to build this in a particular way because I know best and every one of my customers is going to want it? Like this is usually not a good approach peter, I think that's a fantastic observation.

Dave: 5:24

So thank you, because I'm just sitting there going boom light goes off in my head If I think of the number of times we've talked to product owners trying to help them communicate a technical feature of functionality or an offering in business terms that the business can understand. I mean, we do this all the time. It's a headache that a lot of we all have, which is, I know, my perspective of it. So I want to communicate my perspective as to why it's so good and yet on the other side they're hearing through their own kind of, their own perception, their own experiences.

Peter: 5:56

And from that perspective, especially in that product owner, you're going to need to be able to communicate on both sides. You're going to need to have how do I message this to the business? But if you've got new aspects or directions, you need to be able to message it into your technology groups too, and they're going to want very different levels of detail about the technical aspects of the solution on either side of those conversations.

Dave: 6:22

More often than not, anyway, on is there are many different messages and they're all tailored, Even in two directions. You can have a different message going from one side to the other and then back again, because we all have our own experiences and expectations that we bring to the table.

Peter: 6:47

Yeah, and so this takes us and if we think of this, also understanding who it is you're talking to becomes absolutely critical, so that you can tailor that message correctly to their needs, so that it's going to be something that they understand, that's going to contain the information that they need. You know attention span is shortening. We need to communicate very quickly so that they're on the hook and that you turn up in front of a highly technical person with a bunch of marketing fluff and they'll switch off very, very quickly. You have to have an awful lot of trust for them not to do so.

Dave: 7:18

Well, I think you turn up in front of any audience with a lot of marketing fluff. You're not going to get where you thought you might. I think trying to hit some sort of resonate, get something that resonates with an audience, is difficult, right, you're either going to if it's a marketing message, maybe you're going to do that through lots of experimentation. So again A B testing. Going to if it's a marketing message, maybe you're going to do that through lots of experimentation. So again a b testing things to try and figure figure out where it gets to, what the top, you know what the the key points are that people are responding to and exploring. Um, when you try and communicate your message, analogy and story obviously help you a lot.

Peter: 7:52

It's like imagine that you are a developer in your company and you have to go through this to try and get something into production and it's saying, oh, I this to try and get something into production. And it's saying, oh, I've seen that, and anytime you can make it and now we're sort of drifting off into sale but anytime you can sort of get somebody to resonate and understand the message, they can relate to it. And as soon as they can relate to it, they can start to follow along and start to understand how that fits together and what it is that the benefits of this would be. There's another piece there of people relate to things that they have common experience with. So understanding the background that the person you're talking to comes from can help with that too, so that if they have a background in software development, even if it was many years ago, then framing things in those sort of terms may be useful, that's for sure.

Dave: 8:44

I'm just as you're describing this, that I think the narrative type of piece is, I mean, really important, but also a very much like the way to go forward right now, and what I'm thinking there is, I almost feel like the kind of key takeaway is there isn't a single message. There are many, many messages, and the way to kind of draw people in are through many experiences, stories that are being told around that, and all I'm thinking I mean the last. We're recording this about 10 days after Deadpool 4, 3, whatever Deadpool and Wolverine has just released yeah, deadpool 3. But I'm blown away by how many different ways that movie is being promoted and if you look at it, everything from, I mean, any type of audience you've got a different story and storyline being communicated. So I am sure it's come across your desk in some way. I'm sure it's come across your children's, your kids' desk in some way. It's just everywhere and it isn't one message. It's lots and lots of different narratives targeting lots and lots of different groups or personas.

Peter: 9:53

Yeah, in different forums too in that particular instance. So, depending on the forum will depend on the messaging. So, and I think that actually ties into like thinking about how is this going to be presented, about how is this going to be presented If it's something that you're not going to have the opportunity to communicate? You're just sending them a PowerPoint deck attached to an email. Think about how that's going to resonate, or look.

Dave: 10:17

Well, or work, which I would guess is not very much.

Peter: 10:22

Not very well at all right.

Dave: 10:24

If you're lucky, they open it. Yeah, how might we summarize what we're chatting about here?

Peter: 10:31

I think some of the key points are that understanding who your customer is critical and understanding different aspects of how they're thinking about it is important externally selling or marketing into organizations or to even into individuals but also understanding it just from within your own organization ecosystem. If there is change you're looking to make in that organization, you need to be able to sell it. You need to be able to market. You need to be able to persuade people to get onto your view of how the future might look like. And so thinking about, well, who are these people that I need to get bought into this, understanding that and learning, modeling out what their personas are can really help with that.

Dave: 11:18

And I think I'd add to that what I feel our conversation has kind of orbited around or kind of floated around is the idea that the communication it's not what people hear, it's what they're perceiving. So what we're saying doesn't do the communication, it's how people are hearing what we're saying and they bring the filters. We don't control that. So that either. I mean it brings two things. One is lots and lots of communication, not one message. And secondly is really understanding that connection, whether it's through stories or narrative, but some understanding of the other side personas, as you mentioned.

Peter: 11:56

I think the last point I would pull out from that as well is the trying not to sell everything all at once, because that's just confusing to everybody involved. So be specific and target a particular problem, set or area that the person may be interested in, versus trying to solve all of their problems all at once. See if you can identify what the thing they may find most important right now is. Target that.

Dave: 12:21

Yeah, you don't have to sell them the entire store. You have to help them solve one single problem that's in front of them right now.

Peter: 12:27

Yeah, yes, they've got to get a nail into the piece of wood. So you sell them a hammer. You don't sell them a hammer and a mallet and a sledgehammer, and all of these different things can potentially solve your problem. Yeah, okay, awesome. So with that we'll wrap it up for today. You can send us feedback at feedback at definitelymaybeagilecom, and don't forget to hit subscribe. We like subscribers.

Dave: 12:49

Subscribers are really nice. Until next time, peter.

Peter: 12:51

Thanks again, until next time You've been listening to Definitely Maybe Agile, the podcast where your hosts, Peter Maddison and David Sharrock, focus on the art and science of digital agile and DevOps at scale.