The part of his post which peaked my interest was his eloquent description of how his company addressed ‘Pain Points’. This is something that I thought it worth expanding upon.
What is a Pain Point?
Companies and entrepreneurs that are wildly always find a niche where something is causing pain for clients. Mitchell gives Apple as an example.
“Apple took a similar approach and addressed one main pain point with the iPod. Before the iPod was released it was a nightmare to get music for and onto a portable MP3 player. You had to download the music using one piece of software. Then you have to get it onto your music player with another. It was all just too much trouble – until Apple stepped in and addressed the pain point with the iPod and iTunes. Now for most people, iPod is the first (and only) thing they think of when you mention “mp3 player”.
This, for an entrepreneur who is starting out is crucial and something you should look at very carefully while looking for the business that you are ging to start. You need to be asking yourself “What pain point am I solving for my customers?”.
I can relate to this. When I started my commodities business in the UK, the US operation (whom I took European rights from) wasn’t doing great. I knew, however, that in the UK there was no way for a private idividual in those days to buy commodities without becoming involved in complicated futures transactions. Remember, this is time when the web was hardly in use (1997,98) as the information platform it is now, so people had no online trading facilities and no gurus telling them how to trade futures.
The company we had could also leverage the trade with no recourse to the client if the trade went bad. The ‘pain point’ for our customers was not being able to trade commodities in small batches. It worked and we produced a lot of business.
Make Billions Solving a Customer Problem
Look at Sir Richard Branson and his Virgin group. Sir Richard has made billions from the very simple belief that Virgin can do it cheaper, better and with more fun. From its beginnings as a discount record store to the 200 company conglomerate it is now, it still holds true that Virgin stands for solving a customers pain point in any market they enter.
Amazon simplified the pain of buying books, Paypal addresses easy payment on the web for merchants and their customers, Google actually found us what we were searching for with their new search algorithm, Henry Ford made cars affordable, Facebook allowed us to interact with each other easily and Bill Gates gave us an easy to use interface to play with our computers.
The list is endless, of course, but the lesson we can learn from stepping back and addressing our customers ‘pain points’ will give us new ideas and products we can develop and use to address those points.
Also Mitchell discussed how their solution to a pain point in their customers gave them the company’s tag line “The easiest way to sell online”.
Identifiy the Pain Points of Your Customers
We did this exercise when we started this blog. Our goal is to enable entrepreneurs, both on and offline, by providing practical tools and strategies to help them succeed. We created a list of things that prevent entrepreneurs from performing at their best, or even getting started. The one word that kept cropping up again and again was ‘Fear’. My childhood motto was (and still is) “One Life : No Fear” and the blog was aimed at entrepreneurs, hence “One Life : No Fear” as the name of our venture and “The Blog For Entrepreneurs” as our tag line.
If we could just take fear away from our readers and from our students we would be making a huge difference to them and therefore us and we can re-enforce this message through many add-ons to the business.
If you are just starting out in your business career then this would be an exercise that you could spend some time on in the coming days. Ask yourself “What are my client’s pain points?”. If you haven’t started a business yet and you are looking for ideas then use the idea of pain points to see where people are struggling with something that you could make easier, cheaper, more fun or more effective.
Regards
David
@OneLifeNoFear
Davids Blog
I think this really great idea to start up the business….Your articles are very impressive and Knowledgeable too….
I didn’t get how email marketing can help a business. I think it is somehow related to squeeze pages trying to get the email of a user or internet surfer. But anyway I’ve read this article and your ideas are really great.
It’s a good idea to start a solar business and help to make a change for the way we rely on energy
Great post. I started a business in June of 2009. Also, I am affiliate marketer and for the longest time I focused on stuff that didn’t help solve problems. I was only interested in making money. Or in other words I didn’t find those pain points. I think it really helps to step back and really put yourself in the customer shoes. What are they thinking when they show up at your site.
Better yet what problems do they have and how can your product or service help them?
Thanks for your comment Garen. The ‘pain point’ is a great way to put it..
Less is the new-fangled more
I recently thought about opening a small construction company. How can I find a loan .
The pain points is a good approach and I like how you put that into making your blog. I find it to be very useful. Thanks a lot.
@Bill Shor – thanks for the comment, planning is certainly a must… but not too much, beware ‘Analysis Paralysis’
@SydneyJohnston – I take your point, there are those who would argue that some people are motivated moving towards pleasure, others by moving away from pain… but in a business and marketing scenario, you are right… solving the pain issue is where it is at.. Thanks for your comment..
Please allow me to go completely off-topic here, but I’m pretty sure you’ve made a typo when you published your cOmmunity post on the third of August.
LOL! – Thanks for the heads up!!!
It’s an odd thing – and sort of depressing, too – that people respond more strongly to eliminating pain than to creating joy and happiness in their lives. As you mention in your ‘pain points’ above, it’s better, marketing-wise, to focus on curing the pain. When I first was told this by marketers I figured they were just being cynical, but they aren’t. In the pleasure~pain syndrome, pain wins hands down.
Bizzarre isn’t it… you would have thought that moving towards something pleasurable would the main motivators
Make a plan. In any business, big or small, you need to put up a basic business plan of how the business will be run. Determine your target and goals, your market, the cost of investment that you need, as well as your suppliers of your raw product. It is important in business to maintain your supply but not too much so you will not be disappointing customers. Here are some details of what you need to do in starting up that business.bill shor
bill shor
is my first time to visitign here, wow ur blog is so very very nice…and ur articles to, i’m glad to be here and i think maybe i found something to learn in here….thanks my friends
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Sara
http://smallbusinessgrant.info