This can super-charge your organic growth: Don’t let your R&D conduct any product development work without unbiased, unfiltered data on what customers do and do not want. Market Satisfaction Gaps—based on importance and satisfaction scores for customer outcomes—provide this. You’ll free up enormous resources by working on only what matters.
More in white paper, Market Satisfaction Gaps
What else is there besides hearing customers’ needs? Impress them so they’ll want to do business with you. Incorporate your insights into a value calculator to optimize pricing. Use customers’ precise interview language on your website to improve SEO. Uncover unspoken needs in a post-interview customer tour. Understand their next best alternative. These are the reasons VOC training delivers ridiculously high ROI.
Watch 2-min video, How Blueprinting Drives Organic Growth
Is your rep eagerly listening to the customer’s problems vs. over-selling in the “broadcast mode”? When a problem surfaces, does your rep probe to learn when it happens, how often it happens, where it happens, the impact of the problem, and the value in preventing it? Does your rep draw special attention to each customer need in their call report vs. co-mingling needs with a mish-mash of other information? Can your product managers mine your CRM to detect weak signals of market needs before competitors?
Learn how to answer “yes” to the above with Everyday VOC® training.
When you say you want to pursue a “new market,” do you mean the market is truly embryonic? Or is this just a new market for you? If so, it’s better to call the latter an “unfamiliar market.” The customers were already there. It’s you—not the market—that’s new. This is just one example of supplier-centric thinking that permeates B2B innovation. Customer-centric thinking will take you much further.
More in white paper, Innovating in Unfamiliar Markets (page 2)
In either case you should ask, “What was I thinking when I started this?” Especially if you are a B2B supplier with knowledgeable, interested, rational customers, who want you to know their needs. And a science already exists for completely understanding these needs. Maybe it’s time to stop throwing salt and begin learning a better approach?
Learn more about B2B innovation at www.newproductblueprinting.com
The customer stakeholder saying “no” may be completely HIDDEN from the key account manager. Key decision-makers are ABUNDANT… on average, 5.4 people per B2B buying decisions, which drops their “intent to purchase” below 50% (compared to individuals at 81%). Many critical decision-influencers are RELUCTANT to meet with a salesperson. And because these decision-influencers hail from different job functions, they DISAGREE on what is needed.
Learn how to overcome this with Key Account Blueprinting
Your stage-and-gate process is the interface between your company and project teams… doing vital work like preventing mistakes, planning resources, and creating portfolio views. Keep it, but add another interface on top… between the teams and customers. This interface is “customer insights skills.” Together they’re a dynamic duo.
More in white paper, Guessing at Customer Needs (page 9)
Some voice-of-customer experts recommend you exclude your salesforce from interviews because “they can sell but not listen.” True sales professionals are great listeners: You just need to reward them for listening. Strengthen listening and learning by your entire team, and you’ll out-perform competitors who side-line their sales pros when gathering market insights.
More in e-book, Reinventing VOC for B2B (page 24)
You would hope the answer is, “yes.” After all, research since the late-1980’s has shown asking the right questions improves selling success. Unfortunately, our own research of 396 B2B sales professionals shows decades of selling experience gradually improves probing skills, but not taking multiple sales training programs. These sales training programs are surely helpful in mastering other skills, but not for changing behavior when it comes to asking good questions.
Download research report, VOC Skills that Drive B2B Sales
Think of a great radio interview. Did the host say, “I have 10 questions about your book”? Or did he listen carefully, asking wonderful questions? Did these questions cause the guest to think deeply? Did the guest enjoy the stimulating exchange, even thanking the host? This is how you learn what competitors miss. Check out our What-Why-Clarify probing method that’s part of Everyday VOC training.
More in white paper, Everyday VOC
Tell me to increase shareholder value and I struggle to identify something I can do as an employee to raise earnings per share. Tell me to understand and increase customer value, and I can think of a dozen things to do, most of them actionable, measurable, and beneficial to our bottom line. Many of these I will find inspiring… as will others. Our research shows companies pursuing shareholder wealth grow slower than others.
More in Chapter 4 of Business Builders by Dan Adams
The cathedral-builder has counted the cost in years and is willing to pay it to create something of enduring value. He recruits and apprentices the finest stone masons and wood carvers he can find. Because these craftsmen know the passion of the builder, they are secure in their employment, and they work with pride. Do you have such builders?
More in 2-minute video at 3. Be a business builder
You can have an intelligent, peer-to-peer conversation about pressure ratings, fluid specifications, etc. And expect greater B2B interest vs. B2C, since your innovations can help the hydraulics engineer become a hero with his next new product. Without innovative suppliers like you, his path to recognition is a difficult one. The more you understand B2B vs. B2C, the more you can “take advantage of your B2B advantages.”
More in white paper, B2B vs. B2C
When recruiting John Sculley from Pepsi, Steve Jobs asked, “Do you want to sell sugar water the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?” Most employees paid no attention to your last quarter’s earnings-per-share. But they’ll tell their grandkids how their new product turned an industry upside-down.
More in Business Builders, Chapter 4