Putting yourself in the mindset of truly solving customer problems – rather than selling so-called solutions – can be overwhelming at first. Just look at that fishbone diagram you made a couple weeks ago. If you did your level best to brainstorm every possible cause of the business problem you wanted to tackle, you probably ended up with a shockingly long laundry list of potential causes.
As I mentioned last time, what you absolutely DON’T want to do is start pointing to product features that address each and every item on the list. In fact, sometimes the best thing you can do for your customer is NOT solve every problem.
Instead, you need to stick that fish in the Bass-O-Matic ’76, puree it up and gulp down that tasty concoction.
OK, maybe that’s a bad metaphor. And nauseating, to boot.
The point is, you need to prioritize all those potential causes and find the key few that have maximum impact on the problem. Only then can you start offering solutions.
In the Six Sigma world, there are a number of Bass-O-Matics used to help blend up your bass into something you can start working on – from the so-called House of Quality (part of Quality Function Deployment, or QFD) to the Failure Modes Effects Analysis (FMEA) and the Pugh matrix.
But you don’t need complicated tools or acronyms to solve problems for your customers. You need simple tools that give you quick answers that add value.
Let’s take the problem of shoes coming untied. Now, I might have a few key requirements about my shoelaces. I might want them to stay tied, to match my shoes and to be tied in a very neat bow, for example. And I’d probably rank the importance of my needs in that order. Staying tied is most important, followed by matching my shoes, which is then followed by the very neat bow.
In order for my prioritization to work, I need to assign each of these a numeric value that corresponds to its importance, so I’ll give staying tied a 9, matching my shoes a 5 and the neat bow a 1.
Next, I need to pull out my fishbone and look at all the possible causes for my shoes not staying tied, from the length of the laces to the length of my fingernails. We’ll just pick three for simplicity: length of laces, material the laces are made from and the length of my nails.
Now comes the Bass-O-Matic moment. I need to plug all of these into a matrix and determine the impact that each potential cause has on my key requirements. The length of my laces, for example, probably has a high impact (call it a 9) on them staying tied, a low impact (or a 1) on matching my shoes and a medium impact (5) on the tidy bow.
I repeat this process with all the meat on my fishbone until I have a completed matrix that looks something like the one in this file.
Now, you probably wouldn’t agonize as much over keeping your shoes tied as I do. But this oversimplified example should give you an idea of how a prioritization matrix might help you zero in on problems worth solving (in this case, shoe lace length). More importantly, the matrix tells you what problems aren’t worth solving.
When you can tell your customers that some of their problems just aren’t worth solving, and start solving their most important problems, the whole conversation starts to change. Barriers come down. Trust builds up. Rather than being there to shove as many products into the data center as possible, you’re now there to help. You become a trusted advisor – even a hero.
Next time we meet, we’ll talk about using tools like the matrix above, the fishbone diagram, powerful questions and more to create powerful, entangled customer relationships that add value and profitability for everyone.
Until then, try taking the matrix for a spin. Pull all the meat off your fishbone diagram and see if you can use the matrix to help you churn out a tastier bass.
Eryc Eyl / Freelance Writer and Business Consultant
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