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Jan 23, 2022Liked by Ibrahim Bashir

This is great, though I’ve always wondered why everyone says “timing” is important (unless, it’s qualified by a definition, which you added).

Timing isn’t the important thing, there’s no “good time” inherently for anything. However, when you have a perfect storm of customer pain, differentiators and GTM strategy, that’s when it’s a good “time” to ship. And that could be in 1975, 2022 or 2050. So it’s not timing per se, it’s the underlying factors that create the right environment for launch.

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author

well said!

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Jan 23, 2022·edited Jan 23, 2022Liked by Ibrahim Bashir

Hi, Ibrahim. It's great to have more people thinking about solving customer problems earlier in the product development process. I think the three questions you posed would be familiar to most people in sales (and probably those in marketing, too); it's the way most sales funnels work.

Another way to think about the problem, is as a 2x2 where the vertical axis has "Customers Recognise they Have a Problem" at the top, and "Customers Do Not Recognise They Have a Problem" at the bottom. That axis relates to your first question (why buy anything)? Then on the horizontal axis starting with the left: "Customers Are Not Looking For A Solution", with "Customers Are Looking for A Solution" at the right". This mostly relates to your third question. Then in the top right quadrant, you position your solution in a category for customers that recognise they have a problem, and are looking for a solution. For the other quadrants, you can use different tactics to help move customer toward the top right.

Here is my crudely drawn diagram: https://s3.amazonaws.com/shared-ha.rley.org/buying_funnel.jpg

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author

I really like your quadrant visual - mind if I add it to the article and credit you?

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Jan 23, 2022Liked by Ibrahim Bashir

That would be great. Thanks!

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