B2B Organic Growth Blog

We asked this question of new-product teams that had conducted a total of 875 B2B-optimized customer interviews. 96% said these interviews would have a moderate, significant or great impact on their company’s organic growth rate. Only 4% said the impact would be “slight.” About the same amount also felt such interviews would positively impact their company’s culture.

More in white paper, Guessing at Customer Needs (page 10).

Do you plan to grow faster than the markets you serve? Well so do your competitors. How will you win while they lose? Smarter R&D… more persuasive marketing… harder working sales? Can you think of even one unassailable competitive advantage? This series explores the answer for B2B companies today.

More in research paper, What Drives B2B Organic Growth

Many B2B suppliers consider competitive pricing as they plan new-product pricing. Or worse, cost-plus pricing. Both are irrelevant if you deliver real value to customers… not a “me-too” product. Competitive pricing just helps you judge initial customer reaction, and cost-plus just sets the pricing floor. Neither tells you what customers will pay. For that, you need customer-value pricing.

More in article, New Product Pricing: Capturing Freshly Created Customer Value

Most sales professionals are rewarded for one thing. Selling. This year. But if you want to sell a lot more in 2-3 years, better learn today what customers really want. Who better to do this than the people you’re paying to meet with customers daily? Perhaps future companies will unleash sales-and-learning pros… not just sales pros.

Learn more about B2B innovation at theaiminstitute.com 

Do you have a true team… or just some “emissaries visiting from foreign functional areas”? Winning teams share these traits: a) Management signals this work is a top priority, b) the team leader is enthusiastic and capable, c) team success impacts personal performance reviews, and d) the team members want to be part of this team.

More in article, What’s Restraining Your Growth? Your Time Horizon

It may be that your customers’ customers opinions matter more. Somewhere in your downstream value chain, there’s a “drive sprocket” that’s moving the rest of the value chain. Find it, uncover all their needs, quantitatively isolate the critical ones, and pursue these like there’s no tomorrow.

More in e-book, Reinventing VOC for B2B (page 26).

That’s too bad. They could follow 12 rules to dramatically improve their launches. A new approach is needed for three reasons: 1) The digital age is changing everything. 2) B2B marketers have been following the rules of consumer goods marketers too long. 3) Much more rigor is needed than most B2B companies apply today.

More in e-book, 12 New Rules of B2B Product Launch

You’re developing your customer’s new product. It’s like this: “Mr. Customer, we’ve assembled a team aimed at developing something you’ll love. As you can see, we even brought a lead R&D person with us to listen to you. So can you tell us everything you think we should know before we going into our labs? We want to get this right so the innovation makes you a hero at work.”

More in article, Reduce Bias in Voice of the Customer

This can super-charge your organic growth: Don’t let your R&D conduct any product development work without unbiased, unfiltered data on what customers do and do not want. Market Satisfaction Gaps—based on importance and satisfaction scores for customer outcomes—provide this. You’ll free up enormous resources by working on only what matters.

More in white paper, Catch the Innovation Wave (page 13).

What else is there besides hearing customers’ needs? Impress them so they’ll want to do business with you. Incorporate your insights into a value calculator to optimize pricing. Use their precise interview language on your website to improve SEO. Uncover unspoken needs in a post-interview customer tour. Understand their next best alternative. Never stop learning.

More in article, You Already Answered 4 Questions, but… Correctly?