I had three conversations last week that all ended the same way.

“This sounds interesting, but I’ll need to connect you with our IT team to discuss implementation.”

Translation: I don’t understand what you’re proposing. It’s a technology project, and I’m not the right person for technology projects.

Conversation over. Opportunity lost.

This keeps happening at Google. We have incredible technology. We have solutions that could genuinely transform how companies operate and serve their customers. But when I try to explain this to a CMO, a Chief Customer Officer, or a VP of Operations, I watch their eyes glaze over at the mention of platforms, APIs, or implementation timelines.

They hear “technology project.” They think, “not my problem.” They redirect me to IT.

And here’s the painful part: they’re not wrong to be confused because I’m talking about technology when I should be talking about outcomes.

The Problem With How We Talk About Value

At Google, we’re trained to talk about what our products do. The features. The capabilities. The technical advantages.

“Our platform enables real-time data processing across multiple touchpoints, leveraging machine learning to optimize customer engagement at scale.”

Technically accurate. Entirely meaningless for a business leader trying to figure out how to grow revenue or reduce customer churn.

The business leader doesn’t care about machine learning. They care about keeping customers happy. They care about operational efficiency. They care about competitive advantage. They care about results that show up in quarterly reports.

But we keep selling them technology instead of outcomes.

The worst part? When they hand us off to IT, the IT team evaluates our solution through a purely technical lens. Does it integrate with our existing systems? What’s the security model? How complex is implementation?

All valid questions. But now we’re in a technical evaluation rather than a business-value conversation. And technical evaluations move slowly, get deprioritized, and often die in committee.

We lost the business leader’s attention before we ever demonstrated business value.

What If We Borrowed From Product Development?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and I keep coming back to something product teams figured out years ago: MVP.

Minimum Viable Product.

The concept is simple: instead of building everything, build the most miniature version that validates your core hypothesis. Get it in front of users. Learn. Iterate.

MVP works because it forces discipline. It fights scope creep. It accelerates learning. Most importantly, it delivers value quickly instead of eventually.

But here’s what struck me this week: business leaders understand MVP. They get the concept. Many of them have used it in their own product development.

What if we applied the same thinking to business outcomes?

What if instead of a Minimum Viable Product, we talked about a Minimum Viable Business Outcome?

From Products to Outcomes

This might seem like semantic wordplay, but the shift is fundamental.

A product is something you build. An outcome is something you achieve.

When we talk about products, even minimum viable ones, we’re still talking about building something. That sounds like a technology project. That triggers the “hand this to IT” response.

But when we talk about outcomes, we’re talking about business results.

“What if we could reduce your customer support costs by 15% in the next 60 days?”

“What if we could help you convert 20% more trial users into paying customers?”

“What if we could cut your new customer onboarding time in half?”

These aren’t technology questions. These are business questions. They’re the questions that keep executives up at night.

And here’s the critical part: these outcomes can be minimal. They can be achieved quickly. They can be validated without massive technology implementations.

That’s the Minimum Viable Business Outcome: the most minor change that delivers the most significant business value.

Why This Matters for Customer Transformation

There’s a bigger principle at play here, something I’ve been calling Customer Transformation.

The premise is straightforward: customers’ expectations are evolving faster than most companies can adapt. The companies that win are the ones that transform how they operate to align with what customers actually need and want.

But here’s the challenge: Customer Transformation sounds comprehensive. It sounds like a multi-year initiative. It sounds expensive and complex.

And it can be. But it doesn’t have to start that way.

When you focus on Minimum Viable Business Outcomes, you’re not asking a company to transform everything. You’re asking them to prove they can transform one thing. Something small. Something fast. Something that matters.

“Let’s improve how you onboard new customers. Not the entire experience, just the first 48 hours. Let’s make sure they see value faster.”

That’s achievable. That’s measurable. And that’s transformational, even if it’s narrow in scope.

Because once they see results from that first outcome, they believe transformation is possible. They start thinking about the next outcome. And the next.

Customer Transformation doesn’t have to be a massive program. It can be a series of minimal, valuable business outcomes that compound over time.

The Customer-Centric Lens

Here’s what I’m realizing: technology implementation without a customer-centric lens creates systems, not value.

You can implement the most sophisticated platform in the world, but if it doesn’t help you serve customers better, you’ve just created technical complexity.

But here’s where things get tricky. There’s a fine line between value selling and selling value outcomes.

Value selling is about demonstrating the value of your solution to close a deal. It’s a sales technique. It’s about ROI calculators, business cases, and proving why they should buy from you.

That’s not what I’m talking about.

Selling value outcomes is about helping your customer deliver value to their customers. It’s a framework for ensuring those deals actually matter.

The Minimum Viable Business Outcome framework forces this customer-centric lens because it asks a fundamentally different question: what outcome matters most to your customer’s customers right now?

Not what technology is most impressive. Not what system is most comprehensive. Not even what will make the biggest impact on your customer’s internal operations.

What outcome will help them serve their customers better?

Maybe their customers need faster response times. Maybe they need more personalized recommendations. Maybe they need simpler self-service options.

Whatever it is, that becomes the focus. And when you help your customer deliver that outcome, you’re not just implementing technology. You’re not just closing a deal. You’re actually helping them transform how they serve their own customers.

That’s what business leaders care about. That’s what separates genuine transformation from clever sales tactics. That’s what creates partnerships instead of vendor relationships.

What I’m Testing

I’m starting to frame conversations differently.

Instead of leading with what Google’s technology can do, I’m leading with what business outcomes we could achieve together.

Instead of comprehensive transformation roadmaps, I’m proposing 30-60-day experiments focused on a single, measurable outcome.

Instead of selling products, I’m selling results.

It’s too early to say if this will work consistently, but the early signals are promising. Business leaders lean in rather than check out. They start talking about their actual challenges instead of deferring to IT. They’re willing to experiment because the commitment is minimal and the potential value is clear.

More importantly, when we deliver that first outcome, the conversation completely changes. Now they want to talk about what’s next. Now they’re thinking about broader transformation. Now they’re ready to commit resources.

We earned that conversation by focusing on outcomes instead of technology.

The Shift We Need to Make

We need to stop selling technology and start selling business outcomes.

We need to stop presenting comprehensive solutions and start delivering minimal, valuable results.

We need to translate our capabilities into customer value, not technical specifications.

And we need to embrace the discipline of the Minimum Viable Business Outcome: the smallest change that creates the most significant value.

Because in the end, business leaders don’t buy technology. They buy outcomes.

The faster we can prove we deliver those outcomes, the more transformation we’ll enable.

Not through grand visions and multi-year programs. Through momentum. Through results. Through continuous value delivery.

That’s what I’m thinking about. That’s what I’m testing. And I’m curious to see where this leads.