Isn’t a fill-in-the-blank customer questionnaire a bit… boring? If instead you keep asking, “Any other problems?”… you’ll have absolutely no idea what the customer will say next. Exhilarating? You bet. Uncomfortable? Perhaps… but only at first. With practice you’ll love it, and you’ll never go back.

More in e-book, Reinventing VOC for B2B (page 12)

Customers own “outcome” space. You own “solution” space. Don’t let them into your space… unless you want to become a contract manufacturer. Instead, enter their space to understand desired outcomes better than competitors. This lets you deliver unique value in your solutions, which is handsomely rewarded though premium pricing. The best way to do this? Use qualitative and quantitative interviews.

More in the video, Reinventing VOC for B2B

Tell me to increase shareholder value and I struggle to identify something I can do as an employee to raise earnings per share. Tell me to understand and increase customer value, and I can think of a dozen things to do, most of them actionable, measurable, and beneficial to our bottom line. Many of these I will find inspiring… as will others. Our research shows companies pursuing shareholder wealth grow slower than others.

More in Chapter 4 of Business Builders by Dan Adams

All growth-oriented innovation starts with customer outcomes. This is what customers want to have happen, with no understanding yet of how it will happen. Nothing a company does can achieve profitable, sustainable growth unless customer value is created… which comes only by improving these outcomes. Want to improve your new product success? Understand your customers’ outcomes in incredible detail.

More in 2-minute video at 22. Immerse your team in customer outcomes

Picture this: A customer tells your sales rep what they want, who hands it off to your R&D. This clever customer tells your competitors the same thing. Terrific. If more than one supplier crosses the finish line, you can forget any price premium. Try this: You choose the race conditions by targeting an attractive market, and exploring its needs better than competitors. This is one reason why market-facing innovation is superior to customer reactive innovation.

More in 2-minute video at 16. Segment by markets for innovation

It’s risky to incrementalize… but “great hope” projects often absorb huge resources and end with a whimper. What’s the answer? Get out more. Spend more time in customers’ worlds to reduce commercial risk. And reduce technical risk through open innovation, tapping into external technologies. You can’t thrive today without external insight. (Hmmm… “exsight”?)

More in 2-minute video at 42. Beware of New Product Incrementalism

Your company’s only path to profitable, sustainable, organic growth is understanding and improving customers’ important, unmet outcomes. Today this “understanding” is your best competitive advantage, simply because most B2B suppliers have far less customer insight than they could.

More in 2-minute video at 8. Rethink your major initiatives