The Hidden Brake Pedal on your B2B Growth

Preview: The Hidden Brake Pedal on your B2B Growth

Every year you work hard to drive organic growth, right? But can you count on rapid, reliable growth year in, year out? If not, it’s because there’s a hidden brake pedal silently working against all your hard work: Your people don’t understand customers’ problems as well as they do.

This is causing unwanted friction between what customers want and what you deliver. Remove this friction and your growth becomes naturally rapid and reliable.
We’ll show you how to remove this brake pedal by fully understanding customers’ needs. Then you’ll see your salespeople beating quotas this year, and your R&D creating winning products in future years.

Your new products are the lifeblood of your business. What’s the best path to successful new products? It’s overcoming poor market understanding. This has been the leading cause of new product failure for decades.

But what about the “faster horse”? Some believe it’s fruitless to ask customers what they want. They quote Henry Ford: “If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

But this thinking misses two important points. First, B2C vs. B2B. If you produce garden hose, you might not learn much from homeowners. But if you make hydraulic hose, robotics engineers could describe their needs in great detail.

Second, Solutions vs. Outcomes. Don’t expect customers to hand you the solution (like Ford’s quadricycle). That’s your job. But they can tell you their desired outcomes… like faster line speed, lower labor costs, fewer defects, or shorter training time.

Our research examined 24 factors to learn which drive B2B organic growth the most. The most important was delivering products with strong, differentiated value propositions. But how do successful companies do this? They are especially good at customer interviews and the front-end of their stage-and-gate process.

What’s the most critical step? We conducted research to learn which activity most strongly correlates with new product success. The answer was loud and clear: Conduct quantitative customer interviews.  Of 12 VOC skills we studied, the ability to prioritize customer needs had the biggest impact on new product success, by far.

What’s the biggest obstacle to change? It’s inertia. Most companies accept their hidden brake pedal and lackluster growth, because it’s all they know. They’re afraid a new approach 1) might not work, 2) is too hard, or 3) is too expensive. It’s none of these.

Will it work? Since 2005, we’ve trained tens of thousands in New Product Blueprinting. This is B2B-optimized VOC, and it significantly boosts VOC skills:

Is it too hard? No, after the workshop, we assign a coach to “join” your team on their first project to ensure mastery.

Is it too expensive? Training is only ~$2500/person, and includes workshop, coaching, and powerful AI tools.

This training gives you a ridiculously high ROI of ~30 fold. How could this possibly be the case? Here’s the key: You’re already spending a fortune on R&D. Now it’s being properly aimed.