What's Your "Real" Business?
Keep scratching the surface and you might be surprised
Welcome back to The Workaround. I’m Bob 👋
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Do you know why people buy your company’s brand and category? Are you really sure?
I’ll bet you know your elevator speech, competitive set, and points of product parity and superiority. You probably have buckets of data about who, what, when, where, and why they buy. And you might be familiar with the “Job you’re hired to do” model, which can help ladder up to the main reason people make a purchase.
But often we’re fooling ourselves…or at least not digging deep enough to understand how these crazy people called “customers” actually make decisions. Sometimes Often, they don’t even know why they buy.
It takes lots of curiosity—and usually getting personally embedded in a business—to see how things really work. And once you see these programs running in customers’ minds, your business decisions hit a breakthrough.
Love in a Bottle
I first learned the art of positioning as a brand marketer at Procter & Gamble. We had lots of fancy names and processes, including concepts with Accepted Consumer Belief (ACBs), Benefit Statements, and Reasons to Believe (RTBs). We framed marketing and brand equity choices around a WHO, WHAT, and HOW. These models were time-tested on billion-dollar brands over several decades.
But I had worked at the company for over a year before learning about the secret behind our success. It first came when my friend on the Downy fabric softener brand told me their unofficial name for the product: Love in a bottle.
I thought it was just one of those goofy phrases each brand team used to make their jobs seem more important. When I was on Tide, we said we “bled orange” to show our commitment to the business. But my friend explained:
“Sure, Downy makes clothing feel softer, but that’s not why Moms buy it. The real reason is that they want their family members to put a freshly cleaned shirt over their heads and feel and smell how good it is. At that moment of enjoyment, they remember that Mom (or Dad or spouse) made an extra effort to wash their clothes, which means they love them.”
A capful of Downy expresses love among family members. The result is a multi-billion-dollar category. It’s why you’ll see so many fabric softener advertising images of family members smelling—and feeling—the love.
Later, I practiced this secret as brand manager for Mr. Clean. My team and I launched and expanded Magic Eraser with a visual demo of how the product removed crayon from a painted wall. All kids do this at some point, and a $2.99 product was a bargain compared to a $299 painting project. Our real job was to save parents from significant stress, and they found many other ways to use it once we got in the door.
I would see more examples of these “real jobs” in my six years at P&G, especially in our more discretionary categories.
Febreze is one of the company’s most recent billion-dollar brands. But it almost never made it to market. As a new hire, I sat next to this team as it struggled to crack the code. The product was brilliant: a way to remove odors from fabrics. However, people only used it for a handful of rare issues, like after a pet accident or when returning home from a smoky bar. That meant the bottle was barely used over a year.
The breakthrough came when consumers in a long-term test market started using it as a “finishing” spray on carpets and couches at the end of their weekly cleaning routine. The real problem this solved was that family members didn’t appreciate this cleaning effort. But upon entering the now-obviously-clean home after work or school, they got the message and made the Mom or Dad stuck with this chore feel more special.
Crest Whitestrips were mainly bought so people could look good in photos. Most sales happened around weddings, proms, graduations, and other special occasions.
Bounty paper towels exist so parents don’t freak out when their kids spill something. Its super absorbency and kitchen counter availability is insurance against shouting and childhood trauma.
Pampers—the most premium-priced disposable diaper—are mainly purchased by first-time parents who want the best for their newborn and/or don’t feel right penny pinching yet.
The Real Business of Professional Services
I left P&G to become a partner at a digital advertising agency in 2004, just as the marketing world was making a big shift in our direction. Over seven years, we grew the business from $10 million to over $40 million annually. We earned revenue by building many websites, email programs, mobile apps, and banner ads.
Our clients needed this work and were happy to hire us to complete it on time, on brand, and on budget. But this wasn’t why they chose and stuck with us…
I saw the real reason each year when my teams and I would present annual digital strategy recommendations. We spent weeks pulling data, uncovering insights, assessing the consumer and competitive landscape, and creating detailed plans for rolling out our Big Ideas.
I particularly remember a strategy I delivered to the Vicks brand team. Long before Google and others got into the game, I presented a vision for Vicks to be THE source of national cold and flu tracking. Instead of buying more ads, we’d build an owned media channel to provide evergreen awareness, traffic, and trust.
The brand team loved it. We got high-fives on our way out the door. A week later, they renewed our contract, with a much higher budget. And…they asked us to just create more banner ads, email programs, and social apps.
Countless Big Ideas have filled the trash cans of advertising agencies, even when clients love them. That’s because the real job of this work is often to give clients the confidence that you are a top creative agency. They rarely have the courage or budget to go big, but they enjoy the theater of the pitch and look at this as a sign that your agency still employs smart people who care about your business.
It broke our hearts a little when our Big Ideas were regularly abandoned in PowerPoint decks1, but it was worth the effort to retain and grow our client relationships. We made a tidy profit on lots of safer, executional work. And once in a blue moon, a client would let us take a chance on something crazy like this:
Many services businesses have a similar “real” job that you notice once you take an honest look:
Coach/therapist/trainer—An executive coach I know makes $250k/client per year. He told me that at least 60% of his value is the pressure to get clients to do self-work between sessions. That’s why I continue to work with a guitar teacher each week—I don’t want to disappoint him with zero progress since our last session! We could do the work on our own, but we probably wouldn’t without someone to hold us accountable.
Consultants—Their real job is often to cover the politics around a key decision. No one wants to put their careers on the line, so hiring a brand-name firm that everyone can agree on and sink or swim together is easier. Plus, you can blame them if it turns out poorly!
Financial Advisor—You’re not hiring them to beat the market. You’re hiring them to keep you sane when the market is going nuts. The best don’t watch the market every day. They keep us clients from doing one or two really dumb things over a few decades of investing.
Vacation Resorts—Sure, you want to relax and be pampered, but their real job is to not screw up your precious time and money. For resorts, the risk of getting a 1-star review is 10x worse than investing in tiny features like a higher thread count in the sheets. That’s why the Ritz-Carlton allows employees to spend up to $2,000 per guest to resolve an issue.2
The Importance of Knowing the Real Business
Digging into the real reasons people buy your product or service can unearth directions for innovation and differentiation. It can also highlight blind spots where customer retention is at risk.
Here are a few things I wish I had that seem easy to execute:
Netflix—My wife and I can’t be the only ones who want to watch a 1-hour show together before bed. But we spend 15 minutes scrolling and debating before giving up and watching old Seinfeld reruns. Why not make recommendations and more shows based on what a couple is looking for?3
Uber—The real job of this company is to eliminate my stress while maximizing enjoyment. Let me have one more drink with dinner, and allow me to get to the stadium or airport without paying for parking. Ironically, the app almost never helps you plan the pickup.
Angel & VC Investing—I believe one of the fundamental reasons people invest in startups is to get exposed to interesting companies and founders. And some of us want to brag about the companies we’ve invested in. Yet, startups almost never get to meet the individual investors (LPs) who bet on their companies, and LPs don’t know which of their peers are in the funds. I see a lot of opportunity to treat funds like a community rather than just a return on investment.4
The key is to ensure you’re not being too pure or precious with your positioning and Ideal Customer Profile. These insights emerge more clearly when you admit that customers don’t truly love your brand and often buy things for irrational reasons.
The Real Job of this Post…
Heck, this “real reason” concept even works for examining—and potentially improving—your personal choices and behavior.
A real reason I’m an entrepreneur is that I hate having a boss. I’d rather live with my bad decisions than execute someone else’s.
A real, selfish reason I keep an open calendar for people is that I get to learn something from them.
And a real reason I wrote this post is to prevent you from hitting the unsubscribe button. If I continue to keep your trust by writing something of value, then one day I’m sure we’ll have an excuse to help each other.
As for the real reason you’re still reading this…I’m hoping you’re looking for a world-changing insight. But it’s more likely you’re trying to kill some time before the next to-do on your list. Either way, I’m happy you’re here.
If you like my writing, feel free to click the ❤️ or 🔄 button on this post so more people can discover it on Substack 🙏
How we might work together…
Fleet is our holding company for services businesses. We invest in leaders ready to start their own companies (we also do some M&A). If this might be you, hit my Office Hours link.
A2 Influence is our content development agency that helps some of the biggest brands and retailers create and distribute authentic content at scale, including social+influencer. CEO Rob Reinfeld would love to share our approach.
Revelin is our consulting practice that helps with revenue alignment, growth management, and other RevOps functions. CEO Jess Shuman is standing by to share a no-cost assessment of your business.
Feel free to schedule a chat during my Office Hours to discuss questions, feedback, networking, or any other topic. Seriously, any topic! You can also reach me on LinkedIn or by email.
BONUS: Cool Content of the Week
A little something I found meaningful. You might agree…
The Myth of Objectivity and Strategy
Roger Martin is a strategist’s strategist. Each week he fills my inbox with some of the smartest thinking you’ll find in business. I’ve shared his work here before, and I’m compelled to do so again…
In his recent post, “The Myth of Objectivity and Strategy,” Martin writes that “objective” data is not necessarily “truth.” He makes the point that we rely on data and a scientific process to drive our thinking, and frequently call people idiots when they try to argue against our precious data. But we often fail to examine how the data is collected in making our case.
Martin tells the story of his public feud with Bill Gates and how the Microsoft founder was not immune to citing one piece of data and “surrounding it with an ocean of subjectivity.”
I know Vicks would be sitting on a gold mine today if they had taken our recommendation!
Thanks to Tommy Janszen for sharing this perfect example precisely when I needed it. Subscribe to this guy!
A show we discovered as I drafted this post, The Four Seasons, is excellent for 50-something couples’ viewing.
North Coast Ventures in Cleveland has done a lot of good work in creating a community with a mix of events and networking.
Such a great post. Love the behind the scenes from your time at P&G too.
The real motivation for buying is so rarely what we think it is, I shout about this myself and you word it beautifully.
Nice nod to trigger events too – that combination of ‘real’ reason and right time is so important.
Wait, you created that Pringle banner ad?