Dan Adams
Founder, The AIM Institute
Subscribe (free) to view all 50 2-minute videos
Dan Adams
Founder, The AIM Institute
Subscribe (free) to view all 50 2-minute videos
Join Dan Adams on a tour of 50 two-minute videos that will completely change the way you think of B2B business growth.
View any business growth video chapter of interest to you (linked below), or better yet, subscribe to receive a new video chapter daily or weekly.
Viewers learn “why” change is needed, and in later chapters “how” to change. Those who will benefit most are:
This growth advice is original and proven: Since 2005, The AIM Institute has trained tens of thousands of B2B professionals on every continent, coached hundreds of new-product teams, and conducted original research based on 10,000 years of B2B respondent experience.
To find topics of interest, view business growth video abstracts in the syllabus below. Or download the Organic Growth Roadmap … which also helps your company apply these 50 lessons after viewing them.
The methods introduced in this series are based on solid research and AIM Institute’s experience training tens of thousands of B2B professionals. Here’s why these methods will be commonplace someday.
b2bgrowth.video/1 Video length [2:12]
The “Red Queen Effect” has your business running as fast as it can just to stay even with competitors. You need to compete differently if you want rapid, profitable growth you can rely on year after year.
b2bgrowth.video/2 Video length [2:12]
Business leaders can be classified as Builders, Remodelers, Decorators, and Realtors. If you want rapid, profitable, sustainable growth, you need to find and reward the Builders among you.
b2bgrowth.video/3 Video length [2:27]
There are three types of growth: inherited, market, and earned growth. You can only control the last type… which only happens when your new products offer greater value than competitors.
b2bgrowth.video/4 Video length [2:00]
“Maximizing shareholder wealth” is a lovely result but a lousy goal. Goals need to be actionable and inspiring. A better goal is, “Understand and meet customer needs better than others.”
b2bgrowth.video/5 Video length [2:18]
Research shows exceptional companies pursue “better before cheaper” and “revenue before cost.” Since only customers decide what is “better,” your innovation must be driven by the market.
b2bgrowth.video/6 Video length [2:09]
The earlier Quality and Productivity Waves separated winners from losers. The Innovation Wave will be even bigger because it never reaches a point of diminishing return—unlike earlier Waves.
b2bgrowth.video/7 Video length [2:13]
Want rapid, profitable, sustainable growth? Most otherwise-fine initiatives cannot deliver this, e.g. productivity, quality, sales training, customer intimacy, global expansion, and acquisitions.
b2bgrowth.video/8 Video length [2:31]
When you stop innovating for customers, your path is marked by lower pricing, lower profits, budget pressures, cost reductions, reduced innovation capability, and then death or “life support.”
b2bgrowth.video/9 Video length [2:24]
Financial results are like the output of an extruder. For better output, change what you feed the hopper. Focus on new-product innovation to move from a spectator sport to participant sport.
b2bgrowth.video/10 Video length [2:21]
First-order actions like spending freezes and travel bans lead to second-order growth declines. Your leadership team needs to be wary of “first-domino fixation” and “first-domino amnesia.”
b2bgrowth.video/11 Video length [1:55]
AIM research based on 10,000+ years of experience shows B2B professionals are especially eager to improve their business capabilities to understand customer needs (vs. meet them).
b2bgrowth.video/12 Video length [2:16]
Leaders need to balance their pursuit of “results” and “capabilities.” Today, most are way out of balance. They pursue near-term results, and then hit the “reset” button to do it all again next year.
b2bgrowth.video/13 Video length [2:17]
Companies that serve B2B markets have enormous engagement potential. Their customers have high knowledge, objectivity, interest, foresight… and there are relatively few of them.
b2bgrowth.video/14 Video length [2:42]
The B2B Index is a free website tool that lets you calculate “how B2B” your markets are. You can download a booklet loaded with advice for “early-stage” and “late-stage” marketing.
b2bgrowth.video/15 Video length [2:27]
There are many ways to segment customers, but for innovation purposes, segment into “clusters of customers with similar needs.” Do this to maximize your effectiveness and efficiency.
b2bgrowth.video/16 Video length [2:51]
Market concentration takes market segmentation to the next level. It’s the disproportionate concentration of resources on markets you identify as “Attack” or “Study” in strategic planning.
b2bgrowth.video/17 Video length [2:10]
Henry Ford’s famous quote discourages asking customers what they want. (“They’d say a faster horse.”) But this overlooks two key factors: 1) B2B vs. B2C, and 2) Outcomes vs. Solutions.
b2bgrowth.video/18 Video length [2:33]
There are two innovation problems: “What’s the question?” and “What’s the right answer?” Most companies waste R&D resources because their solutions don’t address real customer needs.
b2bgrowth.video/19 Video length [2:22]
Instead of starting with their solution, B2B companies should begin with the customers’ “job-to-be-done”… and learn which outcomes are leading to “imperfection” in that job.
b2bgrowth.video/20 Video length [2:25]
It’s OK to have a cool hypothesis, concept, or technology, but test it “silently”: Focus on customer outcomes in interviews, and later check if your hypothesis addresses them.
b2bgrowth.video/21 Video length [2:26]
During interviews, customers give you Outcomes, Solutions, or Background. The science of B2B customer insight lets you examine outcomes at 9 increasingly-detailed “magnifications.”
b2bgrowth.video/22 Video length [2:41]
For 5 decades, commercial risk—not technical risk—has been the leading cause of new-product failures. Follow this 11-step path to eliminate most commercial risk in the front end of innovation.
b2bgrowth.video/23 Video length [2:34]
B2B interviewing should be very different than B2C. These methods help you eliminate most errors of omission (using divergent interviews) and errors of commission (convergent interviews).
b2bgrowth.video/24 Video length [2:30]
In most business situations, you don’t want surprises. But you do want to be surprised by customer needs missed by competitors. You need to conduct interviews led by the customer, not you.
b2bgrowth.video/25 Video length [2:20]
Great B2B interviewing requires new skills, e.g. AIM’s “What and Why” method and economic probing questions. Use these to gain impressive customer insights and engagement.
b2bgrowth.video/26 Video length [2:25]
Don’t skip Preference interviews, which reveal important, unsatisfied customer outcomes (with high Market Satisfaction Gaps)… the only ones you can get premium pricing to address.
b2bgrowth.video/27 Video length [2:33]
Many B2B companies struggle to convince customers to be interviewed. Here are our four favorite approaches, which have been proven effective all around the world.
b2bgrowth.video/28 Video length [2:32]
While the main goal of an interview is customer insight, B2B companies should also pursue customer engagement. Here are 10 ways to boost engagement and shorten your “time-to-money.”
b2bgrowth.video/29 Video length [2:30]
If you want to unleash the full brainpower of B2B customers during a qualitative Discovery interview, introduce them to a trigger method. One such method is the Trends Map.
b2bgrowth.video/30 Video length [2:05]
Sure, in-person interviews are the gold standard… but “virtual VOC” has surprising advantages. Blend in-person and web-conference interviews to optimize effectiveness and efficiency.
b2bgrowth.video/31 Video length [2:38]
Should you hire a firm to conduct your voice-of-customer interviews, or train your own people to do this? Consider these four factors to find the answer for your business.
b2bgrowth.video/32 Video length [2:34]
Supplement your customer interviews with tours. Use them to a) gather context for interviews, b) look for improvement ideas, and c) gather economic data for new-product pricing later.
b2bgrowth.video/33 Video length [2:35]
These let you move from supplier-focused pricing (cost-plus) and competitor-focused pricing to customer-focused pricing. It’s the only way to avoid leaving money on the table
b2bgrowth.video/34 Video length [2:27]
These 4 common practices practically ensure confirmation bias and squandered new-product R&D. Escape this trap with quantitative interviews and Market Satisfaction Gaps.
b2bgrowth.video/35 Video length [2:45]
The price premium your product gets is driven by its value over customers’ next-best alternative. Here’s the only reliable way to quantitatively assess competing products’ value.
b2bgrowth.video/36 Video length [2:41]
Here are the 12 points of a strong B2B Business Case. Also consider an abbreviated-but-powerful 6-point “Market Case” as your entry ticket into the development stage.
b2bgrowth.video/37 Video length [2:49]
You can deliver $80,000 of NPV by accelerating a typical B2B new product launch by just one month. Here are 4 ways to accelerate your projects… and boost success rates while you’re at it.
b2bgrowth.video/38 Video length [2:26]
You want to deliver the right product to the right market using the right message through the right media. To do this, use AIM’s approach: “Who to tell… What to tell… How to tell.”
b2bgrowth.video/39 Video length [2:40]
A stage-and-gate process does much well, but only manages the interface between a company and its teams. Add “customer insight skills” for the interface between teams and customers.
b2bgrowth.video/40 Video length [2:10]
Technology development is science-facing; product development is market-facing. The former turns money into knowledge; the latter turns knowledge back into money.
b2bgrowth.video/41 Video length [2:34]
It may seem safe to only work on “me-too” and incremental new products. But it’s not. Adams’ Risk Paradox is, “A business built on low risk is at great risk.”
b2bgrowth.video/42 Video length [2:20]
Many companies err by assigning risk levels, probabilities, and rates of return in the early phase of transformational projects. Focus on uncertainty—not risk—for better results.
b2bgrowth.video/43 Video length [2:47]
In a post-mortem, the landmine that blew up your project is obvious. Here’s how to detect and defuse potential landmines in “pre-mortems”… when you can do something about them.
b2bgrowth.video/44 Video length [2:19]
You’ll have better project reviews when management sees you’ve 1) generated assumptions, 2) rated them for impact & certainty, and 3) diligently investigated the critical ones.
b2bgrowth.video/45 Video length [2:43]
It’s more important than ever to study your business’s future: Change can be swift and punishing. Download 16 future trends sheets to help your team see “what could be.”
b2bgrowth.video/46 Video length [2:17]
If your sales force was also a “learning force,” you would have an “early-warning system” to focus your R&D on market needs before competitors. We call this “market scouting.”
b2bgrowth.video/47 Video length [2:13]
There will continue to be cool new innovation methods, e.g. Lean Startup. Before you deploy them “as-is,” though, evaluate them using a B2B-vs.-B2C filter to avoid costly mistakes.
b2bgrowth.video/48 Video length [2:16]
The Vitality Index (% of sales from new products) is a helpful, but lagging indicator. Here are two new leading metrics: Growth Driver Index (GDI) and Commercial Confidence Index (CCI).
b2bgrowth.video/49 Video length [2:57]
You’ve covered a lot in 50 video chapters: Where do you start? This video covers 3 suggested steps on a roadmap to greater growth (and also covered in “Organic Growth Roadmap”).
b2bgrowth.video/50 Video length [2:28]
Preview of B2B Organic Business Growth video series
Why do B2B companies struggle to stay in the top quartile of their peer group? Even if they succeed for a year or two, very few can maintain superior organic growth year after year. Why? Turns out business leaders are held back by their mindset. And that’s what this business growth video series is designed to fix.
What types of faulty thinking will you see in these business growth videos? Here’s a sampling:
If you’re not sure why these perspectives are wrong and damaging, this business growth video series is for you. But you’ll learn much more than “why” B2B leaders need to change their thinking. These business growth videos will show you “how” to…
This business growth video series closes with an Organic Growth Roadmap you can download. Follow this roadmap to confidently move your business growth to the top quartile. For more, check out this article, Ensuring Top-Quartile Organic Growth.