Customers buy outcomes, not solutions
Customers do not buy solutions. They buy outcomes, and tolerate solutions to reach them. Find the beach before you describe the flight.
Picture someone who wants to sit on a Caribbean beach. Between them and it: booking a flight, the security line, a cramped seat, baggage claim, a shuttle. Nobody wants any of that, they tolerate the plane because they want the beach. Your product is the plane. The outcome is the beach. The test for whether you've found the real outcome: would they still want it if your product never existed?
A founder I know spent the first twenty minutes of every pitch on his product. The architecture. The integrations. The clever thing it did that competitors couldn't. Prospects nodded politely and didn't buy.
One day a prospect cut him off. "Okay, but what do I actually get?"
He stopped. Then, almost by accident, he said: "You stop spending your Sundays reconciling spreadsheets and you get your weekend back."
She leaned in. "That. Why didn't you lead with that?"
He'd been selling the plane. Booking, seats, baggage claim. She didn't want a plane. She wanted to be on the beach by Saturday morning.
Nobody has ever wanted a flight. They tolerate the flight because they want the beach.
Customers buy outcomes, not solutions. Find the beach before you describe the flight.