A long, long time ago, in a land far, far away… my baby daughter was bitten by another girl.
It wasn’t a serious bite. It didn’t require stitches or a rabies shot…but the bite was bitten.
When I told my wife, she went into full-on mother bear mode. Who was the child? What were the nursery doing about it? The child should be hung, drawn and quartered and the parents too, for good measure.
I let her rant for a surprisingly long time and then a bit more. Then I said: “OK. Remember exactly how you feel right now because our daughter was the one that bit another child.”
There was a very long pause. Nothing had changed. Same bite. Everything had changed. Different biter.
When selling your goods, services or even your business, I’m not suggesting you bite the buyer. However much you might want to.
I am suggesting it’s a really, really, really good idea to look at your offer from their perspective. What problem are they actually trying to solve? Why would solving it matter to them?
Often the buyer doesn’t need to better understand your offering. You need to better understand what matters to them.
If you do, you’ll be commercially better off.
And much, much, much less likely to get bitten.