B2B Organic Growth Blog

Turns out that understanding market needs makes a big difference. In recent AIM Institute research, nearly 90% of survey respondents claiming a very poor understanding of market needs had new product success rates below 50%. This percentage dropped to less than 10% those for those claiming a good understanding of market needs. So understanding what customers want before you develop your new product is probably a good idea.

More in research report, www.b2bvocskills.com (page 7)

Your sales force is a vital part of B2B voice-of-customer. But don't count on them doing this work by themselves or you’ll miss 4 objectives: 1) Concentration on a single market segment, 2) meeting with the right customer contacts, 3) using strong probing skills and tools, and 4) aggressive follow-through. ... Read More

Imagine your doctor entered the exam room, saying, “I’ll ask some routine questions to validate my hunch… so I can start treatment.” Would he be your doctor for long? Wouldn’t you rather have a doctor who listens first and asks intelligent questions? Your customers feel the same way, so leave your hypothesis in the waiting room and start engaging them.

More in 2-minute video at 29. Engage your B2B customers

Qualitative interviews are important, but if you don’t continue with quantitative interviews you may still struggle with new product innovation. Many B2B producers use AIM’s preference interviews to generate Market Satisfaction Gaps for customer outcomes. A Gap over 30% indicates the market segment is eager to see improvement. ... Read More

Every large company has a system for new product growth. And yet, it’s often pushed aside, not understood, and taken for granted.  Some view it as too technical. Some see it as complex. Most don’t recognize the potential energy it could release. What is this critical system? It’s the new product development process (or NPD ... Read More

No one likes to be average—another word for mediocre—in something as important as growing their business. Of course, half of all businesses are below average in any given year. And few in the above-average ranks for B2B growth are confident they can stay there year after year. This can change for your business. You can ... Read More

Do you like to answer surveys at home? How about at work? How do you think customers feel about filling in your questionnaire? Forget your list of brilliant questions. Instead, learn to brilliantly probe whatever customers want to tell you. You’ll be rewarded by customers who actually want to talk to you.

More in e-book, www.reinventingvocforb2b.com (page 2)

Portfolio management links strategy with execution for new product development. A Voice of the Customer program maximizes ROI for all new product initiatives, whether incremental or breakthrough. ... 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 Success is a metric for current projects. Learning Success—which measures skill-building progress—is a metric for future projects. Most companies just consider New Product Success. Worse, they only look at ultimate metrics, e.g., sales. If they also used intermediate metrics, they’d have enough time to apply what they learned from these metrics.

More in white paper, www.newinnovationmetrics.com