We found the hidden brake pedal slowing your growth…
What is this brake pedal? Your people do not understand customers’ problems as well as they do. But they could… if they asked the right questions.
Your people do not understand customers’ problems as well as they do.
Here’s why it matters: The research behind my book, Business Builders, showed the top goal for the fastest growing companies is satisfying customers (49% of respondents)… while the top goal for the slowest growing companies is satisfying shareholders (70% of respondents). So here’s our first clue: Your growth is tied to satisfying customers.
Imagine a world where you had a complete, 100% understanding of customers’ problems. This world doesn’t exist for any supplier, but some are much closer than others. Most companies experience enormous, unwanted friction between what their customers want and what they deliver.
You remove this unwanted friction when you completely understand customers’ problems. Then your growth becomes natural. Organic. Profitable. Reliable.
Rethink what your customers can tell you.
If this isn’t happening for you today, it’s not your fault: You’ve probably been told, “customers can’t tell you what they want,” right? You may have been applying Henry Ford’s advice to your business: “If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.”
But this is flawed thinking for two reasons.
First, B2C vs. B2B. If you sell garden hose to homeowners, you may not learn much from them. But if you sell hydraulic hose to a robotics producer, you could learn so much from their engineers, who are knowledgeable, objective, and interested.
Second, solutions vs. outcomes. Don’t expect customers to hand you the solution (like the Ford Quadricycle). That’s your job. But they can tell you their desired outcomes… problems they want solved like slow line speed, high defect rates, or long training time. (Or in Henry Ford’s case… greater speed… more power up hills… less post-trip maintenance… shorter refueling stops… no unpleasant waste.)
Accelerate your near-term and long-term growth.
This brake pedal—not understanding customers’ problems as well as they do—slows your growth in two ways. It hinders…
- Achieving this year’s sales quotas (selling what you can make), and
- Developing winning future products (making what you can sell).
In both cases, you’ll see an outsized ROI when you train your people to understand customers’ problems with B2B-optimized voice-of-customer (VOC) methods. Why is the ROI as high as 30-fold? (See 2-minute video.) It comes from leveraging the investment you’re already making:
- Every year you spend a fortune sending your people to customer meetings where they only skim the surface… failing to truly understand customers’ problems.
- Right now, you’re spending a fortune on R&D aimed at the wrong customers’ problems. (See white paper, Guessing at Customer’s Needs.)
You can do so much better.
The gap between what your people learn about customers’ problems—and what they could learn—will astound you.
Consider the Probing Depth Gauge. When we train B2B marketing, product management, technical, and sales professionals, we teach them how to ask questions to fully understand a) the customers’ problem, b) which customer stakeholders are affected, and c) how the problem impacts these stakeholders and their business.
We’ve developed a taxonomy with over 30 different B2B customer problem types, and have learned that 12-to-16 questions must be answered to fully understand any of these problems.
Mastering any skill requires practice, and advanced B2B VOC is no different. Our learners practice with an AI customer and an AI Guide (Claire) who offers advice. At the end of each AI customer conversation, learners see their Probing Depth Gauge, revealing which questions they did and did not ask. This practice-plus-feedback transforms your probing skills.
Ready to take your foot off that brake pedal?
Share this video with others ready for unhindered growth!
If you want to boost revenue this year, check out our Everyday VOC training. When your salespeople ask the right questions, they learn which products to sell, which pain points to address… and they impress customers with their interest in them.
To boost future revenue, explore New Product Blueprinting. For over two decades we’ve trained the world’s largest B2B companies to eliminate most commercial risk in the front-end of their stage-gate process… so they can focus on resolving technical risk.
When your people understand customers’ problems as well as they do, you’ll take your foot off that brake pedal. All that’s left is your accelerator pedal.
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