1) Everyone on the leadership team—HR, Finance, Legal—understands your project de-risking plan and progress. 2) Because you’ve explained potential landmines early, management is confident you aren’t “hiding something.” 3) Management sees you’re investigating critical assumptions fast and cheaply, so they don’t second-guess or micro-manage. 4) When it’s time for investment decisions, they are made quickly and wisely… because these leaders have been on the journey with you. (See 2-minute video, How to manage transformational projects.)
More in article, How to de-risk projects and overcome management doubt
In the landmark book, SPIN Selling, Neil Rackham’s research on 35,000 sales visits found the best salespeople engage customers in discussions about their problems. Consider your own stage-and-gate process: After Concept Development, Feasibility, Development, and Scale-up, your best salespeople ask customers, “What problems are you facing?” Why not pull this question to the front end and ask it before developing your product? This engages customers in a genuine manner and starts the “selling process” before you have something to sell. See video at www.vocforb2b.com.
More in article, The Missing Objective in Voice of Customer Interviews
It’s pretty obvious that one objective is customer insight—understanding customer needs so you can develop the right product. The oft-overlooked objective is customer engagement. This is conducting your voice of customer interviews in a manner that “primes” customers to buy your product when you’re done developing it. Do this well and you sell your product before it even exists. Learn more about customer engagement in the 2-minute video, Engage your B2B customers.
More in article, The Missing Objective in Voice of Customer Interviews
First, ask what “job-to-be-done” you want to help customers improve. Then ask who these customers are. There’s more to the second question than many realize: a) Which point of the value chain is key? Our customers? Our customers’ customers? b) Which job functions should we interview at these companies? c) Who else in the ecosystem should we interview? Industry influencers? Co-suppliers? Regulators? The more diverse your input, the more likely you are to uncover an exciting market need your competitors missed.
More in article, Elevate Your Success in New Product Blueprinting Step 1
