Every morning we have a planning meeting to discuss the organizations who have requested to see our web content marketing software products. The purpose of the meeting is to be sure we have a solid understanding of the prospects functional needs so we can highlight features and functionality of our software that will solve these pains.

The number one concern we hear from customers is that “It must be easy to use.”  From there the top 5 usually follow in some order: Workflow, Content Re-use, Multi-Site and Social Media. Mobile continues to flatter to deceive despite us all twitching anxiously at the possibility of our smart phones holding a new update. Bottom line, there are plenty of tactical requirements being surfaced and plenty of suppliers waiting to exploit that.

But what I found curious was the lack of overall business goals. WHY does “easy to use” matter to the business?  How will workflow drive a business outcome? What will Multi-site or Social Media do for the business?  

Given this, I decided to sit out in the sales room for a few days and listen first hand to these customer conversations. It’s a very simple process: people search for content management, they find Percussion through one of our numerous channels, engage with our content and raise their hand that they are interested. We follow up to make sure they found what they were looking for, and a conversation ensues about Need.

The problem is that Need gets lost in product requirements. Often the person leading the selection process is solely focused on solving a particular pain (our current system is hard to use, or it won’t scale) or making sure that each business unit’s key features are included in the system (workflow, multi-channel etc).  They either don’t know, or have already moved past the stage of trying to think about the overall business goal.  

If we are not careful however, an arms war ensues where features and functions are tossed around like candy on Halloween.

What we need to do is help connect need to goals. Let’s look at Growth. Is the customer looking to grow? (Duh!) What role does the web play in that growth? How will that online growth be measured? Where does the current web site and web content infrastructure stand in the way of achieving those objectives?

The risk is that there is a gap between feature functions and measurable goals. If the customer is not careful, and if we shirk that responsibility to close the gap, the risk of project failure increases. Customers are unable to connect their requirements to their needs, and their needs to their goals, and their goals to results that are measurable and achievable.

Aside from being better sales consultants, we are also working very hard to deliver out of the box ways to address this in the software. The Dashboard in Percussion CM1 is just one example of how the customer can measure their efficiencies and effectiveness. We are also building on our experiences and providing tools to help support the business case here. Finally, we are holding ourselves accountable to asking hard questions of this marketplace; for starters: “How will you measure the success of this project”?

We welcome these conversations so give us a call (or click here and we will call you). Just know that at some point in that call, we are going ask you the questions above!

-@josephwykes