3 Steps for Driving Urgency and Running More Successful Pilots

Pains and gains aren’t enough without stakes.

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Ever had a customer go cold after a sizzling start?

You’ve just closed a big customer. They’ve agreed to run a 3-month pilot to evaluate your product. Everyone is excited during the onboarding call, and things are seemingly off to a great start.

Then motivation starts to wane.

They aren’t using your product as quickly as you'd expected, but you’re hopeful that things will pick up.

They don’t.

Three months fly by, and the customer asks for an extension.

Sound familiar?

The problem: Your customer doesn't share your sense of urgency.

The future of your startup depends on this pilot. Theirs doesn't.

How do you structure pilots where your customers are as motivated as you are to see the pilot succeed?

That’s the topic of today’s issue.

A lot of product pitches use pains and gains to craft a unique value proposition:

⬆️ Gains describe the desired outcomes customers want. They help pull the customer up the progress hill.

⬇️ Pains capture the obstacles standing in the way of those outcomes. These obstacles represent friction the customer experiences as they make it up the progress hill.

Good pitches amplify gains (PULL) while minimizing pains (FRICTION). But pains and gains alone aren't usually enough to spring your customers into action due to their inherent resistance to change (INERTIA).

Making progress takes effort and coordination, and inertia usually wins. Just think of all the unread Kindle books you might have bought with the best intentions.

The missing ingredient to counter inertia: Stakes.