- All right, I'm going to walk you through three products
that you've heard of,
except they were failed successful products.
So Bubble Wrap,
Bubble Wrap was originally created to be wallpaper
and no one wanted it.
Listerine,
Listerine was created to address and fix gonorrhea.
And my favorite Viagra, Viagra was actually invented
to lower blood pressure by increasing blood flow,
but no one wanted it for that,
people wanted it for something else.
Here's the thing.
All three of these products were invented
for completely different problems, but it failed,
and then they figured out how to actually reorient
that product to a successful problem to solve.
This is the magic of product positioning.
Now you may have an incredible technology,
but you've got it positioned towards the wrong thing.
But if you can position your product effectively,
then you could have massive success.
And a lot of times founders, especially founders
that are technical, me right here,
and I'll tell you how ToutApp went through this,
we tend to be married to how we're positioning our product,
we don't think about it broadly and it's to our detriment.
So in this episode, I'm gonna walk you through
the three principles you need to follow
to actually position your product effectively,
to actually make sure that you're going after
the best and highest use for your product.
Intro.
(upbeat music)
What's up everybody?
Welcome to Unstoppable,
I'm TK and on this channel, I help SaaS founders like you
grow your SaaS businesses faster with
an unstoppable strategy.
If you are new to the channel, welcome,
be sure to hit that subscribe button and that bell icon
that way you'll get notified every single time
I drop an episode with the TK energy.
If you're already part of this channel,
if you're part of our community, if you're part of
my SaaS go-to-market coaching program,
welcome back, happy new year,
it's so awesome to see you over here.
Okay, so when I first started ToutApp,
we had this mantra for the company.
It was, copy and paste is so 1990s,
copy and paste is so 1990s, it was catchy,
it was on our business cards, it was on our tagline,
it was tell people about it, it was in our ads
and it worked to a certain extent,
like that's what we launched with.
Because originally ToutApp was email, tracking, templates
and analytics and followups,
and it was all about, hey, like stop having
to copy and paste the same message,
we can just create templates for you.
And all kinds of people loved it,
but it wasn't really a big market.
Like it wasn't gonna be a billion dollar market,
which sales engagement is right now.
It was like okay.
It wasn't until we repositioned the product to salespeople,
it wasn't until we said, you know what?
This product actually helps you generate more pipeline,
that we really start to take off like crazy.
And that happened because we took the time
to actually reposition the product,
it gets its best and highest use.
The technology didn't change, it was the same technology,
same features, we were selling the same thing,
we just positioned it in a much more effective way,
and that led to more growth.
And this is when I really learned the importance
of properly positioning your product.
So in this episode, I learned a lot about
how to position products.
We deal with this very specifically
in our SaaS go-to-market coaching program with founders.
So I'm gonna walk you through the three principles
you need to know so that you can start
to think about positioning your product effectively.
So if you're excited to dig in,
go in and smash that like button, if you haven't already,
let's go to principle number one.
So principle number one is what is the highest and best use
of our technology?
This is the question you wanna be asking yourself.
So you've built this product,
you've built this incredible product,
this technologies, maybe it's a breakthrough,
maybe it's a new platform,
the most important question for you to ask is
you may have built it originally thinking about solving
a certain problem,
but as you think about some of these products
that were invented to solve a certain problem
and then went on to solve a different,
more important problem better,
the question you may be wanting to ask yourself is
what is the highest and best use of our technology?
Now, there are different ways to answer this question
and I can't go into the details of exactly how
in this video, 'cause that's for a separate,
like that's much more in-depth thing,
but some examples would be to ask your most rabid users on,
hey, why do you use this?
What's the big benefit you're getting out of it?
Is there some core product loop that they're using
that's way more valuable to them?
It's about thinking broadly about, well,
what is the real result that we're delivering for people?
And what are the other kinds of people
that want the same kind of result?
Now I would encourage you also to kind of Google
the history of Bubble Wrap, Listerine and Viagra,
'cause it'll help you start to understand some of
the patterns around, well, they invented this
to solve this thing, this was the result,
and this result is actually more valuable
if we position it in a different way.
It'll get you to start thinking about
what is the highest and best use of our technology?
Now, mind you, the important thing to remember
in a positioning exercise is that
it's not about more features,
don't fall into the one more feature trap,
it's much more about what is the best and highest use
of the technology that we already have
that we've already created
and can we orient it in a better way?
So that's principle number one.
The second question for you is who has the most important
and urgent problem?
Who has the most important and urgent problem?
When we were making the switch from
just anyone that's a power email user to salespeople,
we were saying, you know what?
Salespeople complain the least,
they're the most fun to work with, they love our product,
they're willing to pay as much as possible
because they, it pays for itself with one extra deal
in an enterprise organization, Nick let's go work with them.
And so we were able to hone in on that specific ICP,
we were able to hone in on that specific segment
of the market,
and we were able to hone in on specific roles
that cared about this the most.
So you wanna be asking yourself once you hone in
on what is the highest and best use,
think about who has the biggest, most important
and urgent need for this highest and best use solution.
So I did an entire video talking about market segmentation,
which is an extension of product positioning,
so you can check that out here.
You don't have to go right now, I'll link to it below it,
you can check it out after.
And they'll tell you a little bit more about
how to really segment your market appropriately
and the principles to follow for that.
Now I have a third principle, but before I go into that,
let me just pause here for a second.
Let me just pause like, are you starting to see
the power in this just from these two principles?
See, we as SaaS founders and technologists and inventors,
we fall in love with the solution,
we fall in love with this incredible technology.
What we forget about is this technology can be used
in so many different ways.
And my goal for this video was to get you to realize
the technology can remain the same,
but if you can position it in better ways,
just even by following the two principles
that I've covered already, you can actually massively shift
the success of your product, the impact of your product.
I mean that's really what matters, right?
You wanna sure your technology is being used
for the right impact, that's what matters the most.
So if you're starting to see this,
starting to see the value, can I just get a yes
in the comments below, so I can hear from you,
it just, it's awesome to hear from you,
my team loves it, I love it.
We respond to every single comments.
If you have questions,
go ahead and put in the question below and we'll answer,
and also smash that like button if you haven't already.
Also, if you're starting to think about, well,
what is our product positioning?
How do we develop our value proposition?
How do we feed that into a cohesive go-to-market machine
so we can grow faster?
This is why I have my SaaS go-to-market coaching program.
Step-by-step process that we guide you through
to actually build a scalable go-to-market machine.
I'll tell you more about that in the end of this video,
but let's go to principle number three.
Principle number three is what sets you apart?
What is your unique value proposition?
Once you start to hone in on like, look,
we understand now how we can best use this technology,
the highest and best use, and we know exactly who needs it,
how do you set it apart, right?
Like when you think about Bubble Wrap
and Listerine and Viagra,
like what was the thing that they did that set them apart
and said, hey, we're actually the best for this, right?
This is where your value proposition comes in.
This is where you clearly craft what makes you different,
how you actually deliver on it, who it's for
and why they need to take action now.
So you'll have to develop your value proposition
that matches principle one and principle two as well.
If you wanna understand the principles
around value proposition,
I did a video on four steps to creating a value proposition,
you can check that out here.
You can, I'll also link to it below
but you don't have to go right now.
So let me recap here so you kind of get the full picture.
Number one, you need to make sure
with the technology you have, what is the highest
and best use of our technology, right?
It may not be what you think it is.
It may, the market may tell you differently.
Number two is who has the most important urgent problem
that this highest and best use solves, right?
Who can we actually meet with,
like, who can we serve in the biggest way
using this technology that we've created?
And number three is how do we communicate that?
What sets us apart?
How do we differentiate?
And when you do these three things,
these three simple components,
you start to develop your product positioning.
When you do that, you end up rising above the competition,
you end up going into the highest value customers,
you end up growing faster.
So those are my three principles,
battle-hardened over 15 years of building SaaS businesses.
And if you are in this stage where you're developing
your product positioning,
you're developing your value proposition,
you're developing your go-to-market machine
and you wanna grow faster these are critical components.
And you don't wanna just keep listening to the videos
that gives you the principles,
you want a step-by-step process to follow,
and you want actual coaching to get through it faster.
Then I invite you to check out
my SaaS go-to-market coaching program.
Here's the thing, I drop a video three times a week,
and they're chock full of actual principles
that you can follow.
But the principles are just that,
they're why you need to do something
and how you can start to go about doing it,
but we don't get it in the what because it takes longer
than a 10 minute video
and it takes real coaching to do it properly.
This is why I have my coaching programs.
The coaching programs go into the, what you need to do,
gives you the training and my coaching,
my 15 years of experience so that you can get
through these stages effectively,
so that you can reduce execution risk.
So if you're in this stage, we'd love to figure out
if we can help you,
go to TKKADER.COM/GTM
for details on my SaaS, go-to-market program,
we are taking new applications for founders to join.
Last year, we had an incredible year,
incredible successful year with our program members.
We're even more excited about this year,
so we would love to explore if we can help you go faster,
grow your business faster
with an effective go-to-market machine.
Go to tkkader.com/gtm.
If you got value from this video,
be sure to smash that like button,
that way we can actually spread our word,
reach more founders, help more people.
And remember, we also do three episodes every week,
so be sure to hit the subscribe button and then bell icon,
if you haven't already
that you'll get notified every single time I drop an episode
with more principles and strategies
to grow your SaaS business faster.
Also, if you have a fellow founder,
a team that could get value from this,
please share this video with them,
it'll mean the world to us.
And lastly, remember everyone needs a strategy
for their life and their business, but when you are with us,
yours is gonna be unstoppable.
I'm TK, I'll see you in the next episode.
(upbeat music)