Basic 30x500 Painstorming
edit ✏️Painstorming is part of the 30x500 course by Amy Hoy and Alex Hillman. These are my notes from the course.
Painstorming is like blamestorming, but we are hunting for the pains that people experience trying to achieve the outcomes they need and desire.
When we painstorm, we aren't synthesizing our opinions or applying the solutions we've thought of in the past.
The goal of painstorming is to create a catalog of what hurts.
The pains we are trying to discover are composed of three parts:
- facts - these are the outcomes desired and the current situation that is being faced
- feelings - feelings aren't facts but they are hugely important and we want to capture the two-sided coin of fear and hope as much as possible
- actions - this is the steps that people actually take and the things they actually do to address the facts and feelings
It's important to note that all three of the facets of pain are coming from words written by actual people and not something we the adventurer on Sales Safari have conjured in our own vivid imaginnation.
Stop that shit.
It's a hard habit to break.
When we are painstorming we will stick to organizing our findings and not synthesizing our own thoughts.
That will come later! The temptation to be clever in our own right is so strong. 😅
When we painstorm we want to capture the exact words of real people. We are looking for:
- complaints
- suggestions
- thoughts
- opinions
- jargon
This type of real data is more valuable than speculation. We are after piles and piles of real data and nothing else. The real data is an assett that we can then use forever as part of our growing portfolio of pain.
Looking for questions is always recommended, and when you see snark you are on the right track. A solid zinger? A sick burn? That's pain that makes it land.
It's OK to editorialize a bit about the implications of what people say and read a bit between the lines, but watch out because this is a slipperly slope into speculation.
Painstorming fills the three satellites of the Audience Orbit:
What hurts? What do they want? What do they buy?
Be on the lookout for:
- Hard data and real examples
- Specific "crispy" descriptions and jargon
- The feelings you channel
- exact quotes