Put Your 💰 Where Your 👄 Is!

For anyone you've already interviewed who you think might be an excellent early adopter (you believe they'd pay for your solution), get a confirmation by doing a pitch test. The purpose of a pitch test is to gauge the customer’s interest in our proposed value proposition. Is this valuable to the customer? Are they willing to pay? Will they give you their credit card? If not, why not?

Audience:

So far, in this step, we've been adamant about avoiding talking about your solution for fear you'll be too pitchy or unintentionally influence your interviewee. We've stuck to the standard progression of customer interviews:

1. First Conversation - Problem Interview: discover the customer and understand their problem
2. Second Conversation - Solution Interview: figure out what type of solution they might want before building
3. Third Conversation - Product Interview: getting feedback on the first product you have built before launching

However, it can be challenging to get a single meeting with customers, much less three meetings. Therefore, and for the sake of efficiency, we recommend that once you've done a few purely discovery conversations focused exclusively on understanding your customer's problem, you start to include some product validation while you still have your interviewee there. These conversations build on each other, so stick to the traditional order. What we mean is, don't discuss potential solutions before you have spent sufficient time understanding the customer's problems and confirming that they could be an excellent early adopter before you even mention a word about your idea for a solution. As for interviewing them about your product, if you have a demo ready (definitely not required at this step), be sure it is the very last thing you discuss with them.

Solution Validation via the Pitch Test

If we were to ask questions about the solution, they might sound like this: "Would this solution solve your problem? Would you use this solution? What do you think about this solution? Would you pay [x dollars] for this solution?"

<aside> 🙌 Pitch Test Tip: A simple question to start with to ease into the "commitment" questions is, "In your opinion, does what I am offering to solve your problem?”

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But let's think back to what we learned earlier in this section about focusing our questions on the past. These questions have a lot of "would," and remember, people are terrible at predicting their future actions. A better way to go about validating your idea is to have them "show us" or demonstrate the degree to which they like our idea by making some form of commitment. Different types of commitments can take the form of:

• Money: this is our top choice! Determining an amount can be difficult at the beginning when you might not have a solution, so you can even ask for a nominal amount. The key is that they give you the money or hand over their credit card info.

“Does this sound like something you want?” “Are you ready to put down your credit card info right now?” “So, do you want to pay now or pay next Tuesday?” “We’ve got a discount for customers who sign up today.” “We're taking a deposit of $20 today to be a part of our Beta product.”

• Time: their time can be incredibly valuable, so if you can get them to spend a lot of time doing something to access your product, such as participating in a beta or manual version of your solution, and give you a lot of feedback, you may be looking at a potential early adopter

“If we sign the contract today, we can start working on these concerns first thing tomorrow morning. Is that something you would be willing to commit to?” "To participate in our Beta, we will ask for a lot of feedback, including weekly surveys or calls."

• Data/Information: this can be anything from emails and phone numbers to more personal information

"Would you be willing to sign up to be a Beta Tester?" "Will you sign up for our waitlist?" "Will you sign up for our email list to be notified when we release the product?" "Fill out this form to see if you qualify for our special."

• Introductions: to key decision-makers in their org, other potential customers, or experts. Willingness to share their professional contacts, especially, is a sign of confidence in you and your idea.

"Do you have any friends/co-workers who experience similar problems? Would you be willing to introduce us?" "Would it be easier if we came in and explained our product to your team or boss?"

• Review/Testimonials/Case Study/White Paper: these can help you be more credible to future customers.

"We're offering free test trials of our product in exchange for reviews or testimonials. Are you interested?" "If you liked your experience with our product, we will ask for you to collaborate on a white paper or case study with us. Is that something your company would do?"

It's essential to encourage customers to make these commitments. It's not getting the sale that is important; rather, you need to learn what is holding them back from committing. It is likely to be something that other customers share and something you may not be aware of.