Pricing metrics and the customers that suboptimize them

There are many truths in life.  If it didn’t sound so geeky and pessimistic, I would add to the list “customers will always suboptimize your product based on your metrics.”  It’s not very catchy.

I previously wrote about points to consider when choosing your metrics.  It was by no means exhaustive, but it did have a “salesy focus”.  That’s because your sales people play a vital role in your pricing and licensing scheme both before it is rolled out and when their boots hit the ground (and I saved one harsh reality for the end of this post).

Additionally, I brought up a few “rules” (or at least observations I’ve discovered) about choosing your metrics.  I could have added suboptimization to the list, but I’ve found there are some finer points to consider about this psychological pattern when it comes to your software’s sales, adoption, deployment, and expansion.

Flexibility is not strategy (part 1)

You can’t focus on everything and succeed.  Obvious, right?  Clearly if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there (in this case, all roads do not lead to Rome).

No person or company knowingly decides to be everything to everyone.  But that’s exactly what happens when you can’t choose (and stick to) a specific goal.

Banking on flexibility is tantamount to saying yes to everything.

While it’s OK to be open to possibilities, sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between distraction and opportunity.  Opportunity’s transient nature can lead you to chase every possible direction until you forget who you are and how you got there.

You may ask yourself, “how did I get here?”

Some companies end up backing into disperse activities through growth or acquisitions.  Acquisitions can bolster a product portfolio in an unusual direction which deviates from the company’s core competency and tenets.  Unless the company consciously adopts a new strategy.