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Without seeing the author’s book, I would like to suggest a couple of potential ways to think about this given the short article: If the customer is the person

Without seeing the author’s book, I would like to suggest a couple of potential ways to think about this given the short article: If the customer is the person your trying to sell to, then who is the anti-customer? A: The person you can’t seem to sell to. 1) Your persona says everything about the target customer relevant to your product. But which of these aspects of the customer persona make them hard to CLOSE? How does this analysis impact your marketing and sales approach? Your product? Your business? 2) Another option is to see the anti-persona as the “failure” to REACH your customer because of hidden aspects. Identify potential hidden aspects that can result in a failure to sell as your product, business or strategy is currently envisioned.

ang_cire 3y ago
I think the author is rather saying that anti-personas are people you DO NOT WANT to sell to, not ones you just have a hard time with. For instance, if I am a B2B product that really requires a large-scale (say, 10,000+ endpoints) deployment to really become valuable to a customer, I really should try to avoid selling to a 300-endpoint small business. And I sure as hell don't want to sell it to some random grandma who's not even running a business. I won't flat-out refuse, but it's not going to help me or them to give them a product that is mostly useless to them. It hurts them because it's a waste. It hurts me because now I'm either setting up a future disappointment, or I'm potentially going to expand my product scope/features to try to become useful to this new group. A product can't be everything to everyone, and just as it's important to understand what your product will do, and who it will be for, it's important to understand what you refuse to let it ever grow into doing, and who should not consume it as a result.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  Yes, an excellent point. It's a variant of a business rule of thumb that I learned when I was younger that has served me well over the decades. "No" is the most valuable word you have. Use it. It's easier to go broke by saying "yes" to the wrong thing than by saying "no" to the wrong thing.

ang_cire 3y ago

I think the author is rather saying that anti-personas are people you DO NOT WANT to sell to, not ones you just have a hard time with. For instance, if I am a B2B product that really requires a large-scale (say, 10,000+ endpoints) deployment to really become valuable to a customer, I really should try to avoid selling to a 300-endpoint small business. And I sure as hell don't want to sell it to some random grandma who's not even running a business. I won't flat-out refuse, but it's not going to help me or them to give them a product that is mostly useless to them. It hurts them because it's a waste. It hurts me because now I'm either setting up a future disappointment, or I'm potentially going to expand my product scope/features to try to become useful to this new group. A product can't be everything to everyone, and just as it's important to understand what your product will do, and who it will be for, it's important to understand what you refuse to let it ever grow into doing, and who should not consume it as a result.

JohnFen 3y ago
Yes, an excellent point. It's a variant of a business rule of thumb that I learned when I was younger that has served me well over the decades. "No" is the most valuable word you have. Use it. It's easier to go broke by saying "yes" to the wrong thing than by saying "no" to the wrong thing.