Question 1

Customers do not understand what we sell. What does that mean?

Accepted Answer

Customers not understanding what you sell is the gap between a capable business and a description that leaves buyers guessing. You hear it in the questions that come back after a demonstration, in prospects who summarise you as something you are not and in the polite silence that follows a pitch nobody could repeat to a colleague. It is worth separating from a demand problem, because the two look identical on a pipeline report. A demand problem means people who understand the offer do not want it. A comprehension problem means people who would want it never get far enough to find out, and the second is far more common in technical businesses.

Question 2

What causes it?

Accepted Answer

Most explanations are written from the inside out. They start with the architecture, the methodology or the platform, all of which matter enormously to the people who built them and almost nothing to a buyer working out whether a familiar problem is about to go away. Jargon does the rest. Every industry develops shorthand that saves time between colleagues and costs comprehension with anyone else, and the more expert a team becomes the harder it is for them to hear their own language as strange. There is also a category problem underneath. When a company sits between two recognised categories, buyers reach for the nearest label they know and compare you against products solving a different problem, which is a failure of framing rather than of interest.

Question 3

How do you fix it?

Accepted Answer

Lead with the change rather than the mechanism. A buyer needs to know what is different on the other side of working with you before they can care how it happens, and the how becomes interesting only once the what has landed. Test the explanation on somebody outside the industry. If an intelligent person one step removed from your market cannot repeat the offer back accurately after a minute, the buying committee will not manage it either, and they will be doing it without you in the room. Name the category you want to be compared in. Buyers benchmark against whatever label they have, so giving them the right one early stops the conversation drifting towards competitors who solve a different problem entirely.

Customers do not understand what we sell

Customers do not understand what we sell

Where the problem actually starts.

The route back to being understood.

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