3 Ways To Make Your Audience Care About Your L&D Product

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 TODAY’S THOUGHTS ☠️

Hey there 👋,

There’s an old saying in many industries that has never been true…

“If you build it, they will come”.

Too many L&D teams fall into this trap. We too quickly close the door when the design work has finished and expect the masses to gobble it up like the next Taylor Swift album.

If only that were true!

So, today, we’re exploring 3 ways to make your audience care about your L&D product.

Get your tea or beverage of choice ready, 🍵.

We've got lots to discuss!

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 IN THIS DROP 📔

• Why you can’t ignore product positioning for L&D

• Avoiding the formulaic writing styles that turn off your audience

• The old skill that just became the new premium level for humans

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 THE BIG THOUGHT 👀

3 Ways To Make Your Audience Care About Your L&D Product

Like you, I recognise that a lot of the world is run on how well you can sell a product to end users.

This is no different in the L&D world.

Your work doesn’t end with designing a solution. You have to convince people to use it. So, we must learn how to position our fabulous learning products and experiences to succeed.

I always threw this question into team meetings:

What’s the number #1 thing you need to do when launching your L&D product?

You need to sell the outcome, not the product.

Not doing this can quickly condemn your product to the graveyard.

I’ve seen several L&D products fail not because they sucked, but because users weren’t aware of the outcome and how it would transform them for the better.

It’s useful to find your best position with your end users.

It’s helpful to consider:

• Why is this thing useful for them?

• How will it improve their life?

These are the questions that we have to answer as L&D pros.

April Dunford, seasoned product positioning consultant and author of “Obviously Awesome“, perfectly frames what we need to do, sharing:

Here’s how I learnt from positioning mistakes earlier in my career 👇

1/ Sell less, Solve Problems

No one cares about the product you’ve built.

They care about how it will solve their problem and improve their life. It’s wise to get clear on the answers to these early in your design phase.

They’ll pay dividends when you reach the time to market.

I’ve fallen into this black hole earlier in my career. Build stuff and expect people to organically be excited about it because it helps them, right?

❌ Wrong.

We’re driven by a bounty of emotions.

In the workplace, both social standing and money move mountains in people’s minds.

→ Will x product make them smarter? Tell them.

→ Could an outcome be making more money? They should know.

Key to note: Don’t lie or clickbait. That’s just dumb.

Whatever promise you make must be delivered. Be smart with your words and intent.

I hit brick walls because I was trying to sell the L&D solution, not the problems it solved. We too often see this in a lot of the LMS and LXP market. You’ll find a list of features, usually AI-powered these days, yet very little on the impact they’ll deliver.

There’s much to learn about what not to do here.

Consider this next time you’re seeking buy-in from stakeholders and end users.

And always remember: What problem are you solving?

2/ Less Robot, More Human

This can be slightly more problematic in the age of AI and what feels like an ever-increasing number of formulaic writing styles.

The smart move is to break free from these structures.

Or…risk being lost in the crowd.

If we’re really honest with ourselves, most course and resource titles suck.

They’re often so vague that we leave the participant confused as to what’s really being offered to them.

When users don’t behave the way L&D teams expect them to with content and courses, they blame the individual. That’s easy to do, yet rarely the real reason.

Writing well, especially for attention, is a key component of our life and practice.

If you present a fabulous learning solution to your audience with boring and basic words, do you expect fireworks of excitement?

I think not!

Putting this into practice

In the visual example, we get real on how feedback is hard.

We must relate to our audience.

Talking like a robot and saying “Improve your feedback” is boringly flat. It doesn’t spark as an aspirational statement, right?

I find it helpful to meet people as a fellow learner because we all are.

Recognising that giving feedback is hard, and you find that too, helps set a co-partnering context. Not the stereotypical teacher → student paradigm, or the guru and their followers vibe.

3/ Talk Outcomes, Not Features

Share the benefits your audience will get by engaging with a product.

Don’t share a feature list of what it contains. Yes, that means those huge bullet lists that feature on too many course pages.

Tell the story of how it will transform them.

The visual above works because we promise to build the desired outcome. We’re positioning our product to the audience which will get the most value from it.

Just like April Dunford advises.

1. We’re sharing 3 tips on FB to use immediately.

2. You’ll learn how to share feedback like a pro (tactical promise)

3. You’ll understand how to improve and feel better about the process (outcome).

And, all in one sentence.

The BEST framework to nail your product positioning

What I’m about to share with you is a real-world superpower

I use this framework to clarify my thinking across so many creative tasks.

I keep this in my note-taking app. It comes from marketing guru Ann Handley’s book, Everybody Writes.

I always need to be laser-focused on:

• Why am I building x thing?

• Who is it for?

• Why should they care about it?

We don’t need to fill up the world with more generic content/courses.

This framework will help you make sense of everything. You’ll want to keep a note of this somewhere.

1. Why am I creating this? What’s my objective?

2. What is my key take on the subject or issue? What’s my thesis? My point of view?

3. And, finally, the critical So what/Because exercise: Why does it matter to the people you are trying to reach?

Don’t overcomplicate this.

Write down what comes to mind and cut away the fat later. Your final act is to put all of this into one sentence.

As an example.

Let’s say I’m working on an idea around generative AI upskilling for an L&D team.

My answers would look like:

1. To help L&D pros figure out how to intelligently apply gen AI tools in their work vs using 1000s of tools for no reason.
   

2. My key take is to assess tasks we do to see where/if gen AI tools can enhance what we do.
   

3. It matters because you need the right tool for the job and to understand the latest innovations for work. Gen AI isn’t the answer to everything. But you shouldn’t ignore it if it can help.

In one sentence: Help L&D pros make the right choices with AI tools with a solid assessment framework.

If I were building an L&D solution, that sentence would be my mission. This clarity enables me to design, position and promote effectively.

Final thoughts

Our work has never been about design alone.

Product positioning and long-term promotion are a huge part of what we do. Why spend precious time crafting a high-quality L&D product, only to let it die days after its release?

That makes no sense to me.

Consider how you can put into practice what we’ve unpacked today.

→ If you’ve found this helpful, please consider sharing it wherever you hang out online, tag me in and share your thoughts.

 VIDEO THOUGHTS 💾

Human Skills Are The New Premium, So How Are You Building Them?

It’s a captain obvious statement to say that tech is levelling the playing field with so many digital skills.

The barrier to entry has never been lower, so what can you do to build your edge in the career game?

My take…focus on your human skills.

The things that amplify our natural abilities to learn, connect, communicate, and create change.

In this video, I explore this take with research from the past few years as AI continues to make us question what skills are really important today.

Till next time, you stay classy, learning friend!

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