Has your business correctly answered 4 questions? 1) Would better customer insight improve our innovation success? 2) Should we take a DIY approach to customer insight (vs. using “hired guns”)? 3) Should we learn improved customer insight from external trainers (vs. training ourselves)? 4) Should gaining this customer insight capability be a top priority (vs. other priorities)? ... Read More
Use these 5 tactics to improve your solution brainstorming: 1) Begin with a problem to be solved. 2) Embrace two distinct phases of divergence and convergence. 3) Schedule for adequate time. 4) Choose a diverse team. 5) Conduct pre-session training. Then move on to 5 “advanced” tactics. ... Read More
New Product Blueprinting provides these typically overlooked benefits: 1) Learn the unknown unknowns. 2) Unlearn the things we do know… that aren’t true. 3) Align the development team for action. 4) Make better decisions through market intuition. 5) Build sales relationships. ... Read More
Modern “Jobs-to-be-Done” (JTBD) thinking began with the most popular HBR article ever written: Ted Levitt’s “Marketing Myopia.” It begins this way: “Every major industry was once a growth industry. But some that are not riding a wave of growth enthusiasm are very much in the shadow of decline. Others, which are thought of as seasoned ... Read More
What if you could turn B2B product development into a science? What if you searched for the causes of new product failures as you would for problems in chemical reactions or manufacturing steps? Now you can. We’ll use our “triple diamond” of NPD to examine all 6 steps you must do well to ensure success. ... Read More
In a concentrated market—where there are relatively few customers—B2B innovators should pursue customer engagement as well as market insight. Practical ways to do this include keeping customer objectives in the center, ensuring the interview process is a professional experience, and continuing to engage the customer after the interview. ... Read More
In a tough economy, B2B producers can follow these 4 tips: 1) Hear the voice of the customer inexpensively, 2) get everyone listening to the customer’s voice, 3) use other people’s knowledge, and 4) alter their training model. ... Read More
For rapid, profitable, sustainable growth, your goal should be, “Understand and meet customer needs better than anyone else.” These 7 other common paths simply won’t work. Use AIM’s B2B Growth Diagnostic to benchmark your business against average, top quartile, and top decile companies on 25 growth drivers. ... Read More
This AIM Institute article shows research by Dr. Robert Cooper explaining the power of voice-of-customer. Of 18 sources for new product idea, the 8 VOC methods studied took 8 out of the 9 spots in this survey of 150 firms. ... Read More
Congratulations! You’ve been promoted! On your first day as a new B2B exec, your company’s Director of Public Relations wants to chat. Something about a press release. She says you’ll want to address stockholder concerns. To provide hope despite the weak economy and sluggish sales. To give a reason to believe. A reason to have ... Read More
The world of B2B sales techniques can be a confusing landscape. “Confusing” because it’s hard to know when to rely upon traditional B2B sales techniques and when to embrace newer approaches. Certainly, B2B sales are more complex than B2C sales – and despite the information revolution – this complication persists. Many of the current challenges ... Read More
These 5 practices help you succeed in the first step of Blueprinting… selecting a target market and project scope: 1) Define the boundaries. 2) Seek diversity. 3) Schedule enough time. 4) Sync with your strategic plan. 5) Get key stakeholders on board. ... Read More
If we bring a prototype to a customer, this is “concept testing.” Something different from voice of the customer research. But when definitions are not understood, these become conflated and we fool ourselves into believing that we’re more customer-centric than we really are. This confusion results from how innovation and new product processes have evolved. ... Read More
Product managers are critical along the journey to become customer-centric. To that end, few investments are more important than product manager training. Before diving too deep into the product manager training strategy, let’s discuss this title, “product manager.” Since titles don’t always mean the same thing from company to company, let’s be precise in our ... Read More