A critical aspect of getting tuned in is for the vendor to quantify the impact that the buyer receives when they buy and start using the product or service. If we aren't tuned in to the unresolved problems that exist in our marketplace, we tend to build products that we think will make our buyer's life better. Often, we substitute our needs for the client's needs and declare that rolling this product out will make their life "better."
By tuning in, we understand, from the buyer's view, what the impact will be. There is an important refinement to this process that we often miss. It isn't just "impact" that we are looking for, it is positive incremental impact. We need to measure how their life will get incrementally better over their current way of solving the problem. And when we measure positive incremental impact, it must be balanced by the negative impact that inevitably goes with it.
The simplest example is the net effect of paying for the product. Yes, it improves my life, but that is balanced against the cost of acquiring the product. If the price is higher than the perceived improvement, the market doesn't buy. The negatives don't stop with price. Add to that the "costs" of implementing, training, and downtime and now the positive incremental impact may become a net-negative. Microsoft's Vista currently exists in this territory for many buyers.
If you think about your last "competitive replacement product" you may have experienced this. Tuned out thinking leads to internal proclamations about the superiority of our product and how it will kill the competition. Sure, your product is "better" but if you net that against the cost of your replacement plus their current investment in the competitive product, plus the disruption associated with implementation, training, and acclimation to your offering, the buyer may be in net-negative territory. This explains why so many competitive replacements falter even though the replacement actually is substantially "better."
Finally, you need to remember that the positive incremental impact is segmented by persona. For some buyers, the impact substantially outweighs the negatives while others really don't receive the same net-positive results. Attempting to overcome this with any amount of marketing is simply an exercise in futility.
