Part One: Strategy · Where demand comes from
Makers add attractions, because attractions are in their power. What holds people back is usually worry about the new thing and comfort with the old one.
Four forces act on a person who is thinking about changing. Two push toward the new thing: the trouble with the present, and the appeal of something better. Two hold them where they are: worry about what could go wrong, and the habit of the way they have.
Product teams work almost entirely on one of the four. They make the new thing more appealing. More features, a better demo, a lower price. When sales stay flat, they add more.
But a person can want the product and still not move. Will my data come across? Will the team hate it? What if I pick wrong and everyone knows it was me? And the old way, for all its faults, is paid for and learned. These forces are quiet. People rarely say them out loud, and a feature list does nothing to them.
Bob Moesta's team once interviewed people who had toured a Detroit-area builder's condominiums for downsizers. They liked the condos. They did not buy. What came out in the interviews was the dining room table. Moving meant deciding what to do with a lifetime of belongings, and the table where the family had gathered stood for all of it. The builder shrank the second bedroom to make room for a dining table, and added moving help, storage and a room for sorting belongings. Sales rose while the housing market fell. The condos had been attractive all along.
Therefore:
When people want the product and still do not switch, stop adding attractions. Find out what worries them about the new way and what they would miss about the old, and remove those obstacles.
In practice. Talk to three people who looked seriously and did not buy, or who cancelled early. Ask what nearly stopped them, or what did. Each answer is a piece of work that will sell more than the next feature.
Goes with. The push comes from THE STRUGGLING MOMENT (1). Worry is eased by A TRIAL WITH YOUR OWN WORK (32), and habit by A SWITCH THAT CAN BE FINISHED (37).
Source: Clayton Christensen and others, Competing Against Luck (2016).