Jason Cohen, A Smart Bear

22 published

• Deal-Breakersskill

  Name the circumstances that rule a customer out for good, and the groups who will never buy.

• Define Carolskill

  Combine your working files into one short definition of the ideal customer that marketing, sales, and product can all use.

• Inciting Eventsskill

  Find the trigger moments that push a good-fit customer from maybe someday to buying today.

• Interview Debriefskill

  Turn one customer conversation into a short, usable debrief against your question list.

• Interview Goalsskill

  Decide what you need to learn from customers and write it down as numbered goal questions.

• Interview Hypothesesskill

  Write down your current best guesses as testable statements, so interviews can prove them wrong.

• Interview Learningskill

  Update your hypotheses and questions based on what your interviews actually said.

• Interview Questionsskill

  Turn each hypothesis into an open, unbiased question you can ask a customer.

• Interview Reportskill

  Write one report of what your interviews showed that the whole company can use.

• Keystonesskill

  Find the kinds of customers who need an extreme version of what you do best.

• More or Lessskill

  Pick one of three consistent pricing strategies and line your whole company up behind it.

• Needs Stackskill

  Map what your customer really wants as a ladder where each need leads to the next.

• Observationsskill

  Collect honest, specific facts about what your company and product really are, before judging any of them.

• Positioningskill

  Rewrite your marketing copy so it sells the value you create, not the time or money you save.

• Problem Scoreskill

  Score whether your idea can become a viable business and see which narrower market scores better.

• Raise Pricesskill

  Build the case for charging more and the changes that make a higher price fair.

• Rude Q&Askill

  Get sharp, blunt questions about your plan until it holds up or you decide to drop it.

• Skills from A Smart Bearplugin

  Jason Cohen's skills for founders: ideal customer, positioning, pricing, and customer interviews, with the agent asking you the hard questions.

• Strengths and Weaknessesskill

  Turn your raw observations into the few attributes that matter, each marked as a strength, a weakness, or both.

• Votersskill

  Boil your strengths down to the one or two extreme traits that decide whether customers pick you.

• Who, Me?skill

  Find out what drives you, what drains you, and the strengths you cannot see because they come easily.

• Willingness to Payskill

  Work out why your customers pay and choose the kind of buyer worth keeping, without setting a price number.