Let’s Stop Repeating Our Mistakes
I spoke with people about products multiple times today. And I felt like I was reiterating things that we all already knew in each case. Knowledge is not the issue. Our tendency to take mental short cuts puts us in a position where we keep making the same mistakes.
From 1976 until 2009, Bobby Bowden coached football at Florida State University. I’m not sure when he stated this, but he’s been quoted as saying this:
“The greatest mistake is to continue to practice a mistake.”
Bobby Bowden, FSU Football Coach
My Sister is a Perfect Example
My sister is an avid pianist. She inquired about continuing her education as an adult through piano lessons a number of years ago. I thought it was fantastic, and last year, when we moved to Houston, I got her an even better teacher and a finer piano.
Her piano teacher has made a significant improvement in her playing over the past year, which is astounding. She was excellent already, but now she’s fantastic!
His main focus is on practicing correctly. While most piano instructors suggest learning a piece slowly at first and then picking up the speed, and starting with sheet music before gradually memorizing, this teacher takes a nontraditional approach.
He begins with memorization, works with one hand at a time, and emphasizes stress relief (for her fingers, arms, and shoulders).
He is assisting her in practicing correctly so that she won’t keep making mistakes—errors that could hinder her ability to learn quickly or tackle larger pieces.
Product Mistakes We Often Make
I want to focus on three faults we continue to make today.
Our Key selling point is usability.
I once asked a product owner what their value proposition was in a conversation. Furthermore, even as I was draughting the question, I saw that I ought to have responded, “You can’t say ease of use.”
It’s not that the experience of the customer is unimportant. It’s very crucial.
However, it matters to all of them. That corner will therefore be tried to be taken by everyone. Also, you are unable to distinguish there. We are aware of this. We are aware that having a compelling value offer helps us stand out from the competition.
However, we actually carry it out. And there we are, making the same mistakes over.
We speak in segments instead of micro-segments.
I brought up a membership plugin during another discussion. Who is the client? Someone who desires to create a website for members.
This is the issue with such large parts. And this is already known to us. They’re not all the same in behaviour. Thus, our advertising and message efforts are ineffective.
They only function when we concentrate on a small portion of the market, such as investors who require a place for transaction data or coaches who wish to safeguard their recordings. Those people will respond to a targeted marketing in a comparable way.
We’re building generic features.
Building generic features and then expecting excellent marketing to fix everything is the third area where we keep making the same mistakes. That is far more difficult than creating focused features for the previously discussed micro-segments.
If I were to create a membership site solution for individuals attempting to resell protected content subscriptions on Squarespace or Shopify, it would have a small feature set and be simple to market. It will require more work if I develop a general membership SaaS or plugin and then try to locate a user base.
Let’s Stop Practicing Mistakes
What I’ve discovered is that the only way to improve at something is to quit practicing the wrong approach. We are aware that these are errors. Thus, we must cease producing them. We must develop rigour in the way we consider our target market, features, and goods.
Correct practice leads to improvement.
