New to this? What pains, gains and jobs are, and why only 4+ counts
You're mapping one customer segment and marking which of their pains and gains your offer genuinely addresses. Plain English below.
- Name the customer segment, then list their pains, gains and the jobs they're trying to do.
- Rate each pain's severity and each gain's importance, 1 to 5, from the customer's point of view.
- Tick the box where your offer genuinely relieves a pain or creates a gain.
- Read your fit score and the pains and gains you're leaving open.
- Pains
- The frustrations, risks and costs the customer wants to avoid: the things that go wrong or hold them back today.
- Gains
- The outcomes and benefits the customer actually wants: what a better result looks like to them.
- Jobs
- The tasks the customer is really trying to get done, that they'd hire a product or service to help with. Your offer exists to help them do these.
- Severity / Importance
- How much a pain hurts or a gain matters, from the customer's view. 1 = a minor irritation. 5 = something that genuinely drives their decision.
- Why only 4+ counts
- Fit is scored only against pains and gains rated 4 or 5, because relieving a trivial irritation isn't real fit. A great answer to something the customer barely cares about doesn't win the sale.
Example inputs are loaded. Replace them with your own figures to explore your scenario.
Pains
Rate severity 1 to 5. Tick the box if your offer genuinely relieves it. Only severe pains (4+) count toward fit.
Gains
Rate importance 1 to 5. Tick the box if your offer genuinely creates it. Only important gains (4+) count toward fit.
Customer jobs · what they're trying to get done
Rate how important the job is and how satisfied they are with how it gets done today. Jobs that are important and poorly served are your openings.
Coverage of the needs you rated as important
Partial fit
You relieve some of what matters and miss some. The unaddressed severe pains below are where fit is leaking, and where the roadmap is.
This result uses the figures and judgements entered above. Check the assumptions before acting, particularly where an input is uncertain or several effects overlap.
Pain-relief coverage
33%
1 of 3 severe pains relieved
Gain-creation coverage
67%
2 of 3 important gains created
Severe pains you leave unrelieved
Important gains you don't create
Underserved jobs (important, poorly served today)
A Commercial Assessment builds this against real customer evidence; where it finds a severe pain nobody relieves, the APG Platform turns it into an owned, valued initiative.
A structured self-assessment, only as honest as your read of the customer. Severity and importance are your judgement of the customer's world, not verified research. Fit is measured only against items you rate 4 or 5, so trivial pains and gains are deliberately excluded. Strong fit is necessary, not sufficient: a great answer to a small, shrinking or low-margin segment still won't build much value, so read this alongside the size, growth and margin of the segment. Not financial advice.
Relieving the pain a customer would switch to escape is fit. Relieving a minor irritation is noise.
A value proposition assessment weights before it counts, and turns each unrelieved pain that matters into an owned initiative. That is where a Commercial Assessment starts.
Book a conversation →Prefer to start on your own? Try the two-question check →