Your market is growing at 3% and your operating plan says you’ll grow faster than this next year. Of course, your competitors have similar plans… meaning everyone plans to grow faster than the market served. As TV psychologist Dr. Phil would say, “How’s that been working for you?” Could it be time for a different approach… e.g. understanding customer needs far better than competitors?
More in Leader’s Guide Videos Lesson 1, Recognize your growth challenge
Some companies use the front end of innovation to validate hypotheses or make financial projections. Wrong approach. The front end is a time for learning what you didn’t know, not analysis. Successful teams usually pursue a market without a solution but with an open mind. Converge too soon, and you’ll often miss the best fodder for innovation.
More in e-book, Reinventing VOC for B2B
B2C suppliers use customer interviews to gain insight. B2B suppliers should do this AND to build B2B customer engagement. If your B2B market has a handful of large buyers, use your interviews to impress them as the supplier they should do business with. Three practical ways to do this are explored here.
More in ebook, Reinventing VOC for B2B
First, how interested are they in this topic? Second, how confident are they that this supplier can help them? The first condition puts a premium on your ability to find the right people in the right companies. The second requires you to demonstrate serious intent and—if possible—past successes in market-facing innovation.
More in article, Better B2B Customer Recruiting for Market Research
You don’t want to be surprised in most of business… overseeing production, traveling for business, building a facility. The one exception? You do want to be surprised when innovating. This is true in the lab, but also during customer interviews. See a totally different VOC method that boosts surprises.
More in research report, Discovery Interview Research Report
Consider 3 phases of product development: front-end, development, and launch. You resolve technical risk in the development stage. Most companies resolve commercial risk during the launch stage. Big mistake. Nearly everything needed to resolve commercial B2B risk is knowable in the front-end.
More in white paper, Timing is Everything: Exposing Deep Flaws in B2B Innovation Today
The key to successful B2B innovation and organic growth is understanding customer needs—their desired end results—better than competitors. There’s a science to this, with nine steps. It’s like turning up the magnification of your microscope on outcomes at ever-increasing levels. You should try it.
More in white paper, Timing is Everything: Exposing Deep Flaws in B2B Innovation Today
Developing B2B customer insight skills for this growth requires a commitment your competitors may be unwilling to make. Good. You need them to remain shortsighted. As you gain insights, you may enjoy a bonus: Customers are impressed with suppliers that listen to them… and often offer near-term adjacent opportunities.
More in white paper, Catch the Innovation Wave (page 15).
Should your employees learn customer insight skills from an external firm… or should you develop home-grown training? If the external firm has worked with many companies across many global industries, it will probably advance these methods faster and further than you can. Think of them as the golf club maker. The glory belongs to the golf pro… so focus on your practice time, coaching and desire as the pro… not in making clubs.
More in article, B2B Leadership: Time for Greatness
Most B2B companies have enormous insight advantages, because their customers have high knowledge, interest, objectivity, foresight and concentration.
Check out this free service to score your market’s B2B Index. You’ll see “how B2B” your market is… and learn how to take advantage of your B2B advantage.
I’ve come to believe two principles: A) The only way to create customer value is by improving their important, unmet outcomes. B) A supplier’s only path to profitable, sustainable organic growth is in creating customer value. Do you agree? If so, you might want to place a very high priority on understanding which customer outcomes these are.
More in article, The Inputs to Innovation for B2B
This original research by The AIM Institute investigates 24 possible growth drivers… and the views of over 10,000 years of professional B2B experience on their growth impact. Bottom line: Most companies want to put more emphasis on understanding customer needs in the front end of innovation.
More in research paper, What Drives B2B Organic Growth?
In every other business area—e.g. production or accounting—surprises are unwelcome. But when you are surprised by customer needs that competitors have missed, you have an edge. Seek these out in free-thinking, customer-led interviews, maintain a probing curiosity, and avoid rigid schedules that discourage flexibility. Be surprised. And be happy about it.
More in white paper, Catch the Innovation Wave (page 10).
Many B2B producers are stuck at the 2nd of the 4 innovation maturity levels: Solution Validation. When they ask customers to validate their cool new idea, they think they are understanding market needs. They are not. They are simply understanding market reaction… to one idea… their idea. You’ll get far better results by reaching the 3rd maturity level: Market Insight.
More in white paper, Guessing at Customer Needs (page 7).