What Problem Are You Actually Solving?

We need to replace some windows at home. Now, I haven’t suddenly developed an interest in windows. I’m not spending my evenings researching the latest developments in double-glazing technology, and I don’t particularly want to become an expert in frame construction, U-values, locking systems or the relative merits of different types of glass. I just know that some of our windows need replacing.

A couple are draughty, some are getting older and require more maintenance than I’d like, and there is the question of whether newer windows would make the house warmer, quieter and more secure. I want them to look good, obviously, but fundamentally I have a collection of fairly ordinary problems that I’d quite like somebody to solve for me. Yet if I start looking at window companies, there is a good chance I’ll quickly find myself reading about specifications, profiles, glazing units, manufacturing standards and all the other things that window companies understandably know a great deal about.

Those things aren’t irrelevant. In fact, once I’ve decided who I might buy from, some of them could be very important. But they’re not where my story starts.

My story starts with a draught.

And I think there is something in that for all of us who run businesses.

We know too much about what we sell

One of the easiest traps to fall into in business is becoming very good at explaining what we do, while gradually forgetting why anybody wants us to do it. We talk about our products, services, equipment, processes and expertise. We explain the options available and the differences between them, usually because we genuinely believe those differences matter.

The problem is that we’re looking at the transaction from completely the opposite direction to the customer. We start with the solution because that’s what we spend our lives thinking about, while they start with the problem. My window company might be enormously proud of the technical specification of its windows, but I’m standing in my house wondering why I can feel cold air around the frame. If their marketing starts with my problem and then explains how their product solves it, we’re already talking the same language. If it starts with the product, they are asking me to do some of that work myself, and I’m not sure customers always will.

Why I keep buying Skechers

I’ve realised I do exactly the same thing when I buy shoes. I’ve reached the point where, when I need a new pair of everyday trainers, I tend to look at Skechers first. That’s not because I have carefully compared their manufacturing process with every other shoe company or developed strong views about how the sole is constructed. It’s because they’ve solved a couple of problems for me.

I like a well-cushioned shoe, so their Max Cushioning range appeals to me. And when they say Max Cushioning, they really do mean it. There is something approaching two inches of heel in some of these trainers and, given that I’m only 5’6”, what’s not to like about that? Comfort and an extra bit of height thrown in for free. I’ve also become a convert to their Slip-ins. Being able to put a pair of shoes on without bending down and fiddling around with them sounds like a fairly minor innovation until you’ve got used to doing it. Then going back feels surprisingly inconvenient.

So Skechers have two quite distinctive product features they can talk to me about: Max Cushioning and Slip-ins. But that’s not really how I experience them. I experience comfort, convenience and, yes, being fractionally taller, and those are now part of the reason I’ll choose Skechers over another perfectly good pair of trainers. Skechers can absolutely tell me about the technology behind Max Cushioning or how its Slip-ins are constructed because those features help substantiate the promise, but the technology isn’t really what I’m buying. I’m buying the experience the technology gives me.

You could say something similar about a Barbour wax jacket. The materials, construction and manufacturing quality matter, particularly for a brand where durability and longevity are part of the appeal, but even there the customer isn’t buying waxed cotton simply for the pleasure of owning some particularly well-made waxed cotton. They’re buying something that looks a certain way, feels right to wear, performs well and might still be going strong many years later. The feature supports the reason to buy. It isn’t necessarily the reason itself.

We don’t see our businesses the way our customers do

This is something I’ve become increasingly conscious of at Soar Valley Press because I’m surrounded by print every day. I find print interesting. I can get quite enthusiastic about a new material, a clever finishing technique or something we’ve discovered we can produce on one of our machines. We’ve invested heavily in equipment that allows us to produce a huge range of work in-house, and knowing how all of that works is a genuine part of the expertise our customers are paying for.

But I have to remind myself that our customers aren’t necessarily interested in any of it, at least not initially. They don’t wake up thinking they need some 5mm Foamex printed on a UV flatbed. They don’t spend breakfast wondering whether their next brochure would benefit from a particular lamination, and they certainly don’t lie awake at night pondering paper weights.

They have something else going on. Perhaps they’re exhibiting at an event in six weeks and need to make sure people notice them. Maybe they’ve got a sales team going out to see prospective customers and the material they’re leaving behind isn’t doing them justice. Perhaps they have a large building where visitors never seem to know where to go, or a reception area that doesn’t communicate the quality of the organisation behind it. Maybe they’re launching something, recruiting people, trying to retain customers, thanking staff, raising money, promoting an event or simply trying to look more professional.

Those are the conversations I find much more interesting because once we understand what somebody is actually trying to achieve, then all our knowledge about print becomes useful.

Nobody really wants 500 brochures

This sounds slightly strange coming from somebody who owns a printing company, but nobody really wants 500 brochures. What they want is what those 500 brochures might do.

A nice example is a brochure we print for The Little Theatre in Leicester, showcasing the next six months of shows. On the face of it, the objective is obvious: the theatre wants to promote those productions and sell tickets. We print a brochure containing the forthcoming programme and it goes out to existing and potential patrons. Job done, you might think.

But think about it from the other side for a moment. For the person receiving it, that brochure is doing something rather different. They can sit down with a cup of tea, flick through the next six months of productions and start thinking about what they fancy seeing. Perhaps they spot three or four shows they like, talk to friends about them, put some dates in the diary and suddenly part of their social life for the next six months is planned, all from one handy brochure.

That’s a very different experience from seeing an individual social media advert for one production, perhaps deciding you’ll look at it later and then never seeing it again. The brochure allows somebody to browse, consider, compare and plan. It gives the theatre a physical presence in somebody’s home for much longer than a fleeting advert, but it also gives the recipient something genuinely useful.

So what have we actually produced? Technically, it’s a printed theatre brochure. For The Little Theatre, it’s a way of selling tickets, encouraging repeat visits and building a relationship with its audience over the coming months. For the patron, it could be six months of enjoyable evenings out, conveniently presented in one place so they can decide what they want to see and get it into the diary. Same brochure, but two quite different perspectives.

Likewise, nobody really wants an exhibition stand for the sake of owning an exhibition stand. They want to be noticed in a busy hall, start more conversations and come home with opportunities that justify the time and money they spent exhibiting. A school doesn’t really want signs either; it wants parents to know where they’re going, visitors to feel welcome, pupils to be safe and the site itself to communicate something about the school. A restaurant doesn’t particularly want menus. It wants people to look at the food, fancy something, perhaps try something they hadn’t considered before and have a good experience while they’re there.

Once you start thinking like this, almost every product becomes something else.

Sometimes we’re helping our customers help their customers

The Little Theatre example demonstrates another layer to this which I think is particularly relevant to the work we do. Quite often the print we produce doesn’t directly solve our customer’s problem; it helps our customer do something for somebody else.

The theatre has an objective: sell tickets and get people through the doors. Its customers have an objective too: find interesting things to do, enjoy a night at the theatre, spend time with friends or family and have things in the diary to look forward to. Our brochure sits somewhere in the middle and helps those two objectives meet, which is actually a much more interesting way of thinking about what we produce.

The same thing happens all the time. If a charity asks us to produce an impact report, the real purpose isn’t to create a nicely printed booklet. It’s to show supporters what their money has achieved, demonstrate credibility and hopefully encourage them to keep supporting the organisation. For the supporter, meanwhile, it provides reassurance that something they care about is genuinely making a difference.

If a marketing team orders branded merchandise for an event, their ambition isn’t to distribute the maximum possible number of pens. They want people to remember them after the event is over and ideally put their brand onto something useful enough that it remains on somebody’s desk, in their bag or in their kitchen for months afterwards. That’s quite a different conversation from, “Would you like 500 or 1,000?”

It leads to better advice too, because if we understand what you are trying to achieve, we might suggest something completely different from what you originally thought you needed. That, to me, is where expertise becomes valuable.

Start with the problem, then earn the right to talk about the solution

None of this means features, specifications and technical expertise don’t matter. They absolutely do. I want the company replacing my windows to know far more about windows than I do. I want them to use good materials, employ skilled people and install them properly, and if I’m spending a significant amount of money I will probably want some reassurance about specifications, guarantees and performance too. But first I need to believe that they understand why I’m there.

The same applies to us. We can tell a customer that we print in-house, but why should they care? Perhaps because it gives us much more control over quality and deadlines. If something changes at the last minute, we’re not waiting for an anonymous trade supplier at the other end of the country; our production team is a few metres away and we can do something about it.

We can say we have an in-house design team, but again, why does that matter? Because if your artwork isn’t quite right, or you have the beginnings of an idea rather than a finished file, there is somebody here who can actually help rather than simply rejecting it.

We can talk about the enormous range of things we produce, but the real advantage isn’t having a long product list. It’s that a busy marketing manager doesn’t have to find five different suppliers for their brochures, exhibition graphics, signage, workwear and promotional merchandise, then manage all five of them. They can talk to us, explain what they’re trying to achieve and let us worry about how best to produce it.

That’s the problem we’re solving. The capability is the evidence that we can solve it.

So what do you actually sell?

I think this is quite a useful exercise for any business owner. Look at your website and imagine you know absolutely nothing about your industry. What does it talk about? Does it mainly describe what you do, or does it describe the things your customers are trying to achieve?

If you’re an accountant, perhaps your customer doesn’t really want management accounts; they want to understand why they’re making a profit but never seem to have enough cash. If you’re an IT company, your customer probably isn’t longing for managed IT support; they want Monday mornings where twelve people aren’t sitting around unable to work because something has gone wrong. If you’re a commercial cleaner, perhaps the real product isn’t cleaning at all, but a workplace people enjoy arriving at and an environment that gives customers the right impression of the business.

And if you’re a printer, your customer doesn’t really want print. I should probably whisper that last one. They want more customers, better communication, stronger brands, smoother events, easier-to-navigate buildings, engaged employees, successful fundraising campaigns and dozens of other outcomes.

Print helps them make those things happen.

That’s the more powerful marketing message.

The challenge is that finding it requires us to temporarily forget everything we know about our own businesses and stand on the other side of the counter. I’m currently a useful reminder of that myself because somewhere out there is a window company that knows an enormous amount about glazing technology. I don’t. I’ve just got a draughty window I’d quite like them to sort out, and somewhere between those two perspectives is the reason I’ll eventually choose who gets the job.

So here’s the question I’d leave you with:

what does your business make or do, and what problem does your customer actually think they’re buying it to solve?

The second answer is probably far more interesting than the first.