My second child was born three minutes after my first. Boy and girl twins.

When I took them for their one-week checkup, I carried a car seat in each arm like bodybuilder’s dumbbells. I did a few curls while the receptionist checked me in. Then I was shocked when they charged me twice the copay.

It was an early reminder that we had two different people we happened to be raising in parallel. Each milestone happens twice, and the ones that cost money are doubly expensive.

When it came time to get them big kid bikes, the salesman had figured this out before I had.

He patiently interacted with each of the kids, showing off the different things they cared about, like the colors and the gears. Then he turned his attention to me. He talked about how well the bikes fit both kids. The safety features.

Since my daughter was still taller than her brother at that time, he explained he’d fit her into a bike that was one size up. Then he said the key phrase to make me feel a whole lot better about this expense:

“She’ll be taking this bike with her to college.”

Of all the things he mentioned during this process, my daughter probably cared least about that. She’s still not thinking too much about college, which is several years off.

But that comment stuck in my head as we got kickstands installed, added locks to secure the new rides, and packed these shiny bikes into the car. I imagined all the places that bike might go with her.

Here are the bikes at a very Portland landmark, “The Wishing Tree:”

We marketers with technical products could take some notes from the bike shop guy.

He understood that the kids were only one of his audiences. Yes, an important one, because they had a big say in what we took home.

But, obviously, they didn’t have credit cards to swipe.

Bike dude knew he had multiple audiences that cared about some of the same things, but that we each needed to hear our distinct messages.

And that’s what it’s like with ​technical products where the developer is not the buyer​.

Developers and execs may both care about the problems that your product solves, but not necessarily in the same ways. Your content might be handed off at different times in different ways, depending on their current stage in the buying journey.

When you know the role a developer plays, you can better prepare your content for the handoffs it will inevitably see. And you can make sure it builds trust with all of its audiences.

Just like the salesman did with my daughter’s college bike.