For the To B business, we have to find a small breakthrough point in the early stage and provide solutions to meet the needs of some users. In the process of solving the pain points of these people, more customers will be attracted.
When you have more customers, they will provide you with more needs; however, for To B products, unless you have been in the industry for many years, it is difficult for you to understand the needs of users very well.
2. Which type of customer is better to choose from?
If the users of To B (enterprise-oriented) products are roughly divided according to the pyramid, they are generally divided into three categories: large customers at the head, waist customers in the middle, and small and micro customers at the tail.
But no matter what type of customer you choose to start with, you will definitely serve large customers in the future; because To B customers, especially small and micro customers, often have limited ability to renew their subscriptions.
Of course, different companies have different entry points. At present, in China, the relatively successful business models generally start from the waist and go from the bottom to the top.
why? Because small and micro customers have a relatively high tolerance for you in the early stages of the product; this tolerance does not mean that your product is poorly done and he is willing to accept it, but because he himself does not know what he wants , so you are strong in front of him.
But if you are serving a large customer, you country email list can basically only customize it for large customers.
The concept of "Zhongtai", which has been popular in recent years, can only be developed by continuous iteration and expansion of the business to a certain extent. If you talk about Zhongtai in the early stage, it is unreliable.
Therefore, many listed companies choose such an entry mode in the early stage because they have seen such a core logic.
We first provide a standardized solution, cut through the customers at the waist and below, and then serve the head customers after a certain stage.
Of course, there are also companies that start directly from the top customers. Many of my friends who started businesses in Shenzhen often encounter such big customers and offer you millions of dollars, hoping to customize them.
If the company serves two customers a year, it basically exhausts the industry team, and may be dragged forward by major customers, unable to serve other customers, and the company will not be able to establish other businesses in the short term.
3. How can the team maintain a deep understanding of the business?
There are many differences between the product manager competency models of To B and To C. Product managers need to have the ability to empathize, to understand the scene from the user's point of view, and to think about the corresponding value behind this.
As a team leader, how can the entire team have a deeper understanding of the business?
First, combine online and offline to establish a good communication mechanism.
We borrowed Xiaomi's method into this To B product and established an online forum.
Product managers and operations managers have corresponding accounts, mainly doing the following three things:
Newly released functions: introduction of new functions, descriptions of corresponding scenarios and precautions.
Invitation to Internal Beta: Program introduction, customer recruitment and precautions.
Q&A: Q&A, demand research and customer maintenance.
Product managers and operations managers will go to the forum at the two key points of get off work and before work, and give feedback to users in a timely manner, so that users know that they can find us through the forum, and all their questions can be well answered.
Online forums are an open form. By establishing links with customers in this way, it is more efficient than customers seeking staff in private.
Of course, we will also participate in various large-scale activities offline, and arrange our products and technical personnel to participate in industry exhibitions to understand what the upstream and downstream of this industry are like.
Second, establish industry customer life cycle standards.
During the induction training for new employees, we will let everyone understand the life cycle of an industry in groups and form a relatively standard output.
In the process of research, newcomers learn: what are the OKRs (key objectives) that each customer pays attention to at different stages, and what is the customer's psychological activity?
Then, the results of the survey output and internal calibration, as the accumulation within the organization, are directly posted in the office area, so that everyone can know what customers in this industry are most concerned about.
4. How to prioritize product requirements?
Product managers often receive sales feedback on user needs, boss needs, or product internal needs. How to judge whether this need should be done or not? Requirement priority?
We often say: Product managers serve value, not users. So what we solve is the corresponding value behind the user. How to measure this value is a problem that product managers need to consider.
The products and services provided by enterprises can meet the needs of users, and they will run smoothly, thus forming a positive cycle.
Only when a solution can solve the value of people can you bring users and business value to the enterprise.
In addition to user value, SaaS (software as a service) product managers also need to focus on business value.
Our internal product manager will classify any demand received according to the "User Value Relevance - Business Value Relevance" coordinate graph.
The needs in the first quadrant belong to both user value and commercial value, and can be done.
In the second quadrant, the demand has only user value but no commercial value, such as the material center provided to merchants, which will consume server capacity. If this solution is offered to users for free, it may be prudent to do so.
In the third and fourth quadrants, no matter whether the product has commercial value or not, if there is no user value, then this requirement will not be implemented.
To clarify this requirement:
Is it to help businesses bring user growth, or help businesses improve operational efficiency?
Is it to help merchants improve their digital level, or to improve user experience and security and stability during use?