Some would say that investments in Voice of the Customer are “too expensive and time consuming.” After all, does it really make sense for employees to spend time on VoC projects? For them to be on the road, interviewing customers? Instead, shouldn’t they be doing things that “drive sales?” Like working more shows? Assisting sales ... Read More

A large, unexpected revenue upturn this quarter is good news, right? It certainly feels good, but the satisfaction is fleeting. What you really need is growth that is unrelenting, earned and reliable. When business executives don’t understand the nature of “good” organic growth, they risk three pitfalls. Pitfall 1. “Let’s have a great quarter.” Imagine ... Read More

Quality guru Edwards Deming taught us that “94% of problems in business are systems driven and only 6% are people driven.” With the right systems, a company will grow and thrive. And few are more important than the “feedback loop.” Unfortunately, this term has been used so broadly that the original and powerful meaning has ... Read More

Our research asked B2B professionals what drives profitable, sustainable organic growth. The #1 answer was delivering strong, differentiated value propositions. And the #1 differentiator between the best and worst value-creating companies was superior front end of innovation work (www.whatdrivesb2borganicgrowth.com). There are important front-end steps top-performing companies take to strengthen their value propositions. Consider seven steps using this lens: If ... Read More

Modern “Jobs-to-be-Done” 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 growth ... Read More

In a complex system—like your business—every action leads to a second-order effect (SOE). Some are unknowable. Others are easily predicted but routinely ignored by business leaders. We’ll explore growth-stunting SOE’s you should avoid… and a 5th order plan for your ultimate business success. A college student studies hard, gets good grades (second-order effect), and begins ... Read More

A persona is a hypothetical archetype used to represent customers in a given market segment. Follow 4 practices for B2B growth: 1) Design for just one person, 2) be specific, 3) remember precision is more important than accuracy, and 4) separate user personas from buyer personas. ... Read More