Is it better to sell additional revenue or pain relief in this market?

That's the question Lookstat is actively considering right now. The company has 2 products that it delivers to photographers. The first is a back office service that allows photographers to upload, tag and touch up photos to microstock photography sites. The second product is an analytics offering that enables photographers to track their sales by photo at the microstock photography sites.  At a board meeting lunch last week, we hypothesized that in this bear market that photographers would be more interested in increasing their sales 20+% than in paying Lookstat for back office services. The thought was that in this market photographers would be more willing to do their own uploading, tagging and touching up of photos.  It turns out that hypothesis seems to be wrong. Initital feedback on the two products is that both are quite promising but that photographers really like and need the pain relief that the back office services offer. Go figure. So much for smart board member insight over lunch. Lesson learned -- ask your customers, they often (though not always) customers know best.