If you ask B2B customers the right questions, you can replicate their experience within your operation. Learn which outcomes they care about, which test methods simulate those outcomes, and how much satisfaction would be delivered by any test result. Do this properly and you’ll know how they’ll react before they react.

More in white paper, Catch the Innovation Wave (page 11)

Business leaders focused on the short term are just showing up. They compete for market share this year, hit the reset button, and repeat the process next year. No serious, long-term capability-building. Count yourself fortunate if you compete against such companies. They’re easy to beat with the right time horizon.

More in the book, Business Builders, Chapter 9

Imagine you’re planning to build a new home: Your architect sees you for half an hour, spends the first 15 minutes talking about sports, and then shows you pictures of other houses he designed. Later, when the house fails to please you, he dismisses it saying, “Well that buyer just didn’t know what he wanted.” Ever treat customers this way?

More in white paper, Guessing at Customer Needs

Here’s what to include: 1) Business status: You’ll need a refresher on all aspects of your current dealings with this customer, 2) Company news: You don’t want to be surprised by their new acquisition, divestiture, VP, etc. 3) Market trends: You’ll be able to engage your customer more deeply if you’re conversant in the trends they’re facing, 4) Common problems: If your customer brings up one of these problems, you’ll be prepared to discuss it, and 5) Process steps: This lets you explore steps you could help them to accomplish faster, better or cheaper.

More in white paper, Sales Call Preparation with AI

Most of their thinking goes into adjusting their hardhats. Too bad: Tour insights provide great context for interviews… and your “fresh eyes” may yield ideas for improvement. You might see what everyone else has seen, but think what no one else has thought. You just need to learn the proper skills to do this.

More in 2-minute growth video #33, Conduct B2B customer tours

You want differentiated new products that will induce enthusiastic customers to open their wallets wider. Differentiated products must be… different. But different from what, in what ways, and to what extent? 100% of this information can be learned from B2B customers… but only if you engage them in specific discussions. Very few suppliers do this correctly.

More in video, Reinventing VOC for B2B

Well now, isn’t that inspirational? Perhaps not… but remember you’re in a constant battle with competitors to innovate for customers. One of the best ways to tip the “efficiency” balance in your favor is to consistently learn when projects are unattractive… faster than competitors. Then decisively kill them so resources can be used for winning projects. One of the best ways to do this is to generate Market Satisfaction Gaps.

More in white paper, Market Satisfaction Gaps