What does not having a persona look like? Well, you're a couple of telltale signs. The first is when product managers and product marketers argue with each other about what the priority of features should be in a certain release. And if there is no conclusion out of that what ends up happening is you put in too many features into a particular product. And that overloading of product features is because you're afraid of leaving something out that might offend or disappoint a target customer. You're trying to be all things to all people.

And in fact, you've overloaded the product. Too many features is the first sign. The second is perhaps you're in an organization where there's lots of infighting, you've got sales, people arguing with marketing, marketing, interacting and yelling at salespeople, because there's no sense of teamwork or alignment as to which markets we should go after. And instead, there's just everybody arguing and yelling for any particular priority of marketing, deliverables, collateral messaging, etc, etc. And when there's a lack of alignment, it's usually goes back to not having a persona. And the third is that when you are writing web copy or brochures, it takes too many rewrites to get your final copy.

When there's too many rewrites. What ends up happening is that a company would typically blame the writer said all the copywriter just didn't get it. They're not smart enough to get it. Well, you maybe need to look in the mirror. Maybe it's not the copywriters fault. Maybe it's because you haven't generated a persona to guide the copywriter into what the business problem what the compelling events are, that is driving the purchase of your particular product or service.

In each case, the these are characteristics of signs that says Back to not having a clear persona. The persona is your guide that will help you determine your priority of features. It will help you align marketing and sales towards a unified target. And it will help you clarify the direction you want your sales tools to go and give guidance to your copywriters and web designers etc. to develop compelling messaging and content that's relevant and meaningful for your target persona.