Guy Reams (00:02.146)
This is day 61, the seven ideals of monetization. I've been sitting with a simple question. When customers bring me problems, how do I decide which one deserves my full attention? I find myself listening for a pattern, a drum beat that cuts through the noise. And I keep notes long after the call ends. The test is not whether a problem sounds interesting to me. The test is whether it changes their lives or not.
I've come up with seven key questions to ask myself when pondering whether to invest in solving one particular custom problem rather than another. First, do enough people have this problem? I start by asking myself if this is a lonely complaint or a shared burden. In my notebook, I draw tallies for how many times I've heard the same phrase from different people in different companies and on different days.
When the language starts to rhyme, when the story shows up in meetings that never touch each other, I start to take notice. One voice can be an anecdote. Ten voices feels like a market. Do they feel it acutely and frequently? A rare headache does not move budgets. A daily migraine does. I listen for frequency and for pain. If the problem shows up every morning before they open their laptop, if it interrupts dinner, if it steals their sleep,
There is energy there. Reoccurring pain is a flywheel. Every spin adds momentum to the desire for relief. Third, do they lose money or time or face greater risk by not solving it? I ask what happens if they do nothing? The answers reveal the true scale. If inaction drains revenue this quarter, if it burns through hours, it could be spent on customers or something important.
If it exposes the team to compliance risk or reputational damage, then the cost of delay is already a tax they are paying. When the tax is obvious, the will to act becomes also obvious. Does the buyer have a budget and the authority to actually spend it? I learned that enthusiasm without authority is a mirage. I try to find the person who can say yes and who has the money in the right bucket to make yes real.
Guy Reams (02:23.766)
If that person is leaning forward, if they already spend on adjacent tools that they can reallocate without a committee, then I am really close to a decision. I still care about champions. I just want to make sure there's actually a buyer that has a pen that's in the room. Does the solution feel credible and low risk? Trust does not come from adjectives. It comes from proof.
I show simple demos, real numbers, and short trials to let the customer experience the outcome in their own environment. I remove commitment from the first step. I shorten the path to value. When the first step looks small and safe, the second step will automatically takes itself. Does it align with existing workflow and priority? Even a great fix will fail if it asks the team to become a different company. I watch how they already work.
Which systems do they open first and what meetings they defend on their calendars? If my solution sits where they already live and speaks the language of their current priorities, then adoption becomes frictionless. The more I fit into the rhythm, the less I have to push them to buy. Is the transformation clear and valuable? People do not buy features. They buy a before and an after. I try to paint that picture in plain words.
Before weekly reporting took four hours and three people, after it now takes 10 minutes in a single click. Before a deal's stalled and there is no visibility, after that, stalled deals move and the forecast becomes reliable. When the new world is visible and measured, the decision becomes a story they can repeat to their team. When all of these signals line up, focus becomes easy and pricing becomes formality and not debate.
You do not chase the sale. You serve the need and you make the first win effortless. In that moment, you do not even need to sell. The customer's already sold. Having said all these seven things, they are all idealistic in nature, I understand. I rarely achieve all of them and I often fail to clearly or follow my own advice. However, it is a good exercise to remind myself of at least what the aim is.