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Hey Reader 👋🏻

Before we dive into the main topic today (value leaks - how to spot them and how to fix them) - I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge and celebrate a milestone for by myself personally, SapienX as a business, and for the PX community at large…

​Immersive PX | London is now fully sold out, 6 weeks in advance 🥳

In real terms - it took just 4 weeks to sell out from when we formally announced the new Immersive PX format for London following on from the success of delivering that format in Amsterdam in June.

Why is this so significant? It’s expected, right?!

Wrong.

Honestly, it’s been HARD bringing these in-person learning experiences into reality - there is lot’s of time and cost involved in putting them together - and till now, sales have also been hard work, and outbound work too. Nish and I had to have serious conversations about whether or not it would be sustainable to keep putting these experiences on in the lead up to Amsterdam. So, selling out for London in just 4 weeks through organic and passive* sales feels very significant.

*quick note on passive - in product and GTM passive is never actually passive, it’s just the result of compounding your efforts consistently which leads to lesser and lesser friction over time - this is true of PX design too!

Significant for me because, honestly, I just needed the win! It’s tough bootstrapping and building from the ground up. I needed this. 🙏🏻

Significant for SapienX as it is proof that the Immersive PX format is one that we can continue to invest in and scale. 🚀

Significant for the PX Community because it is evidence that the post-HR generation is really starting to grow and demand (and motivation to buy) these types of product-led PX learning experiences is on the up 🙌🏻

“But the London PX community is more dense and well connected, of course it would be an easier sell”

Yup - I told myself that too, until I realised that more than half the Immersive PX cohort are travelling in from outside the UK. From the US, mainland Europe, Australia, South Africa, Peru, any beyond! 🤯

If there was any doubt before, there isn’t any now...

Product-Led PX is a global movement and Immersive PX is at the heart of it. Which is really (REALLY) f’in cool 😎

Massive thanks from me to you, as a reader of this newsletter, and as a progressive thinker in our profession. YOU are the reason the movement is growing 💜

Oh, and to satisfy your product-led curiosity… Here’s what we did differently for Immersive PX London which helped it to sell out so quickly:

💰 Price: we examined past pricing structures, discounts, buying behaviours from our previous events and came up with a very simple pricing structure which we felt was right from an accessibility perspective, gave us the profitability we needed, and which anchored to a general rule: keep the price below £1,000 (which we identified as being the ceiling / drop off point previously). We settled on a 3 tier pricing model:

• Full price: £1,297 (our hypothesis was that we would never actually reach this price but it would create a value anchor for the lower price options, which proved to be correct)
• Early bird: £987 (crucially below the £1,000 ceiling - our hypothesis was that this would anchor the community price as best value and encourage people to apply to the community before buying their spot, which also proved to be correct)
• Community Price: £897 (we felt that our membership community should have access to the best rate as a default, our hypothesis was that most sales would come from this category, which also proved to be correct)

🪣 Removed Value Leaks in the Learning Experience Design (& format): Linked to the practical framework DCE framework (below 👇🏻), to help address value leaks, we ruthlessly (painfully for me) examined the format to remove elements we felt were not adding the value we had intended, but were increasing cost and complexity to deliver. This helped massively to streamline the format, emphasise the the really high value elements, and eliminate waste in the attendee experience AND the P&L, which in turn allowed us to make the adjustments to pricing (above) to make the experience more accessible.

☸️ Flywheel in motion: Have I ever mentioned how much I love flywheels?! 😆 If you’re new here, you should know, I am obsessed with flywheels! This is is proof of why. Immersive PX | London is the 3rd in-person learning experience we have delivered over what will be a 13 month period. Each time we have improved the experience. Each time we have generated advocacy, promoters, and FOMO. With each successfully executed experience, we are adding big and small nudges to our flywheel, which in turn has created the momentum which lead to the success of sales for this event. This isn’t an accident. I have built SapienX with flywheels of value at it’s core since day 1. Building (and turning) flywheels of value will continue to be my central strategy for growth.

PS there is a reason why my core model of the PX Subscription Product has a “PX Flywheel” at it’s core...

Engage ⟶ Develop ⟶ Delight = Retention & Growth♾️

As always, I want to be an open book with how I am building my business - so I hope this little breakdown helps and it is certainly relevant to PX as a product! I use all the same principles in my business as I share in what I create for for lean People Teams. Case and point, let's take a closer look at value leaks in the context of PX design...

PX Value Leaks

In product terms, a “value leak” is basically any point in your product or service where the value you’re trying to deliver is getting lost or diluted. Think of it like a tiny hole in a bucket where water (or in this case, the intended value) is leaking out before it reaches the user.

In practical terms, value leaks might show up as features that users don’t understand or don’t use, onboarding processes that confuse more than clarify, or support resources that aren’t actually helping users solve their real problems. Basically, it’s any spot where the intended value isn’t fully making it through to the user experience.

In the context of PX, we can apply the same concept. A “value leak” in People Experience might be a well-intentioned HR programme that doesn't really resonate, a feedback tool that employees find too cumbersome to use, or a wellness initiative that doesn’t actually fit into anyone’s day-to-day reality. In other words, it’s where the value you’re aiming to deliver to employees is leaking out through gaps in design, communication, or execution.

Just like in product design, our PX features and programmes can have little cracks where value seeps out before it reaches our employees in a meaningful way.

So, how do we find and fix these PX leaks? 👀👇🏻

The DCE Framework

I think this is an original framework, but forgive me if it does exist somewhere else in the world, I came up with it in conversation with my ideation partner (Chat GPT) - Enter the Design-Communication-Execution (DCE) Framework.

Like all the frameworks I share, I love this one because it is simple 🙌🏻

If you put DCE into action it will help you to pinpoint exactly where the value might be leaking out of your People initiatives and give you the chance improve (or bin) initiatives to create a more impactful and engaging employee experience.

Step 1: Design Check

Let’s start by looking at design. Are your People programmes actually built with your employees’ real needs and journeys in mind? Or are they based on assumptions? A design leak might show up if a programme looks great in theory but doesn’t resonate in practice. It’s all about co-creating with your people and making sure the design truly aligns with their day-to-day realities.

By the way, “co-creating with your people” doesn’t mean - asking employees what they want and then building it… That’s a fast track to even more value leakage! Co-creating is about really understanding the experiences and contexts in which your employee users operate and solving real problems that exist for them - they may not even know they have contributed to the solution if you get really good at user discovery conversations.

Step 2: Communication Check

Even the best-designed programme can fall flat if people don’t understand its value. If employees aren’t engaging because they’re not clear on what’s in it for them, that’s a communication leak. Make sure your messaging is simple, compelling, and always answers the “why.”

I have spoken previously about the importance of understanding “Language Market Fit” - Matt Lerner has written some great pieces on this, I would recommend his newsletter too by the way - essentially, the product (value you want to communicate) has to resonate with your intended end user. Communicate in their natural language, be relevant to their lived experience and the problems you can solve for them, and appear in the channels they are most active in and native to. A lot of failed People initiatives have failed because of a lack of language market fit - if it feels like another “HR thing” engagement and adoption will likely be low.

Step 3: Execution Check

Finally, let’s look at execution. Are your initiatives easy to access and use, or are they a sequence of clunky processes? If employees are dropping off because it’s just too much hassle, that’s an execution leak. Streamline the experience so that the value is as easy to access as possible. This sounds easy, but lot’s of false flags and assumptions often exist during the execution phase which lead to over engineered or misaligned tasks for employees (and other core users) to endure.

Spend time examining your initiatives and programmes to see where friction, effort waste, and low value outcomes exist. For each big leak, decide:

• Kill – Stop it completely and reallocate effort elsewhere.
• Pivot – Redesign or replace it based on real user needs.
• Optimise – Simplify, automate, or improve the UX to increase value.

By applying this DCE framework, you can run a quick “value leak audit” on any of your People programmes. The goal is to make sure that what you’re building isn’t just well-intentioned, but actually well-received and truly valuable.

If Product and GTM teams do this, why not People teams?

Make value leak audits a regular habit, and you’ll build a People function that delivers real, measurable value - not just more HR stuff to “get through.”

OK, that’s a wrap for this week.

Grab your coffee and open up your inbox same time next week for more insights, tips, and resource flags on how to smash HR silos, add strategic value and turn your People function into a growth driver 🚀

With love,

Luke ✌🏻

PS, when you are ready you might like...

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