When you're deciding which benefit to lead with, putting customer feedback and product observations on the table doesn't always settle it. You've explained your reasons. Why is your colleague still objecting?
When we analyze this kind of disagreement, we start by asking which buying question each reason answers. You may be discussing the same benefit while comparing the product with different alternatives. The extra reasons you offer may leave your colleague's objection unanswered.
In her public Forget The Funnel conversation with Gia Laudi, April Dunford recalled the arguments she encountered when she first brought cross-functional teams together. A founder would list reasons customers bought. Sales would question one because other products offered it too. Someone would cite what customers had said, while product would argue that if everyone could do it, customers must have chosen them for another reason. These arguments generally ended with the founder deciding, or sometimes the head of sales. Her explanation was that people had different competitors in mind, which led them to accept different value propositions. What sounded like a messaging dispute could reflect disagreement about the positioning behind it.
Consider a hypothetical example. One colleague is comparing the product with the customer's existing manual process. Another is comparing it with the other products on the customer's shortlist. The first is asking why this benefit makes changing the current process worthwhile. The second is asking why a customer would choose us when several products offer the same benefit.
A customer mentioning the benefit supports the case that it matters to them. That alone doesn't establish that it makes us a better choice than the other products. If competitors offer it too, the benefit may do little to distinguish the products. That doesn't rule it out as a reason to leave the manual process behind.
Both colleagues can accept the same observation and still disagree about the selling point it supports. One keeps explaining how much customers care; the other keeps pointing out that competitors can do it too. The discussion can remain stuck. The first hasn't explained how customers choose among products. The second hasn't undermined the value of changing the current process.
Before revising the wording again, it helps to make the buying question explicit: Who is this message for? What are they comparing us with? What conclusion can this customer feedback support? Those questions help establish why a benefit deserves to come first. They also help reveal whether a colleague disputes the observation itself or the inference from that observation to the selling point.
Sharing a basis for the decision still leaves room for different messages. A free trial aimed at end users and a sales conversation aimed at management buyers may need very different value propositions. A homepage's job also needs to be clear. A team can use different messages while understanding whom each one helps and what choice it helps them make.
A leader can choose a version, but that doesn't establish the buying rationale behind it. Conflicting instructions or copy that hasn't been approved can also hold up the work; positioning disagreements don't explain every delay. Clarifying the comparison, doing more research or rewriting the copy doesn't guarantee agreement.
But connecting a real observation to the buying judgment it can support gives the next revision a specific question to answer: Does this sentence address the objection, or does it just restate our own reason in different words?
Top comments (4)
This is a useful way to split it. I've been stuck on something like it with my own homepage, without a colleague to argue with. My lead benefit only makes sense against the other products on the shortlist. But most visitors probably aren't comparing me with those products yet. They're comparing me with doing nothing, or with a form and a spreadsheet, and against that the benefit answers a question they haven't asked. Your buying-question test makes it clearer that I may need a different lead for each group, not a better phrasing of the same one. When you've seen teams settle this, did they pick one alternative to write for, or keep the message for both groups and split it by page?
I'd give the homepage one main comparison and make the other easy to find. If its main job is helping people decide whether to move beyond a form and a spreadsheet, I'd lead with that, with the comparison to other products further down or on its own page. Separate pages help if each group can find the relevant one, but you still have to choose what the homepage leads with.
What's happening in the business right now that has you focusing on the homepage?
Thanks, that's clear: one main comparison, with the other easy to find. What's happening is that it launched a month ago and has had a few hundred real visits, but nobody has gone as far as starting to sign up. The logs show most people leave from the first page without clicking anything. So I'm fairly sure the homepage isn't answering the question visitors arrive with. My headline is the benefit that makes sense against other products, and most people probably aren't at that stage yet. Before I rewrite it, I'm going to watch a few people look at it and try it, so I'm changing it on evidence and not on my own guess. If they mostly describe it as "a better form for collecting ideas", that tells me which comparison to lead with.
That sounds like a sensible next step. I'd listen for what they expected it to help them do, as well as what they call it. "A better form" could give you the comparison to lead with, but it doesn't by itself tell you why they'd switch.
I'd be interested to hear what you find.