Product Princess Journal / Position the Product
If They Have to Work Too Hard to Understand It, They Won’t Buy It.
A good product should make people curious. It should not make them confused.
One of the easiest mistakes to make when you’ve spent months sometimes years developing a product is assuming everyone else understands it as well as you do.
You know what it does.
You know why you made it.
You know what problem it solves.
You know what makes it different.
You’ve probably explained it so many times that it feels almost painfully obvious.
But your customer is meeting it for the first time.
And they are giving you seconds not minutes to figure it out.
That matters.
Because people rarely stand in front of a product and think:
I don’t understand this yet, but I’m sure if I study it long enough, I’ll discover why I need it.
They move on.
Confusion is expensive.
A product can be beautifully made.
The quality can be excellent.
The packaging can be gorgeous.
The idea can genuinely be good.
And it can still struggle if the customer cannot immediately answer:
What is this?
Who is it for?
Why would I want it?
I’ve learned that when something isn’t selling, our instinct is often to add more.
More explanation.
More features.
More wording.
More photos.
More options.
But very often the answer is the opposite.
Make it clearer.
You are too close to your own product.
And I say that lovingly because every product entrepreneur is.
You know the backstory.
The customer doesn’t.
You remember version one, version four and every improvement in between.
The customer sees one image on a screen.
You know why the material costs more.
The customer sees the price.
You know exactly how they’ll use it.
The customer may still be wondering what it actually is.
That distance between what you know and what they understand is where sales can disappear.
Try the five-second test.
Show your product to someone who has never seen it before.
Don’t explain anything.
Give them five seconds.
Then ask:
What do you think this is?
Who do you think it’s for?
What do you think the main benefit is?
And here is the difficult part:
Don’t correct them.
Listen.
If their answer is completely different from what you intended, that is useful information.
It does not mean your product is bad.
It means the communication around the product needs work.
And that is fixable.
Clarity beats cleverness.
Entrepreneurs love clever names.
We love beautiful branding.
We love taglines.
We love storytelling.
I love all of those things too.
But none of them should make the customer work harder to understand what they are buying.
Your packaging can be beautiful and clear.
Your brand can be sophisticated and clear.
Your website can be emotional and clear.
You do not have to choose.
Sometimes the strongest product description in the world is simply:
Here is what it is.
Here is what it does.
Here is why it matters to you.
Then tell the story.
Look at your product like a stranger.
Pull up your website.
Look at your packaging.
Look at your social media.
And pretend you have never seen your product before.
Can you understand it without scrolling?
Would you know why you need it?
Would you know how it improves your life?
Would you know what makes it worth the price?
If not, don’t immediately spend more money getting more people to look at it.
Fix the message first.
Because sending more traffic to confusion does not create more sales.
It creates more confused people.
The Product Princess takeaway
You do not need your customer to understand everything about your product.
You need them to understand enough to want to know more.
Start there.
Clear before clever.
Simple before complicated.
Customer before creator.
Because when someone finally understands what you’ve been trying to say all along, sometimes the product suddenly becomes very easy to buy.
A great product shouldn’t require a presentation. 👑