The Bottom Line:

• Every part of your organization has to work toward sales transactions.
• Pricing establishes the revenue and profits from those transactions.
• Pricing determines the volume, velocity, and value of your sales.

Every part of your organization, from product development, to manufacturing, to marketing and sales, is working toward one thing: sales transactions. Customer service supports those transactions, looking to create repeat and referral transactions.

Pricing is the mechanism which establishes how a company generates revenue and profits from transactions. That is, pricing establishes what a company expects customers to be willing to exchange for your offering.

When you price correctly, your revenue stream will be as profitable as possible. Set the price too low, and you are exchanging margin (and total profitability) for volume – too high, and you may limit or throttle sales altogether.

Therefore, pricing determines the volume, velocity, and value of your sales.

• Volume: The total amount of sales revenue generated by an offering. This can also be seen as potential share of a given market realized by the offering.
• Velocity: The speed with which sales transactions take place. This can be the speed of transaction growth between time periods (i.e., month to month growth), as well as the typical “sales cycle” for transactions.
• Value: The profitability of transactions at a given price point. Marginal revenue and marginal profits are largely a function of optimal pricing.

What would be the likely impact on total sales and total profits, if we lowered our prices by 10%? Raised our prices 10%?

Bottom Line:

• Access to “Power Players” is not as simple as “plug and play” but if you fine tune your approach it can be done.
• Before you tap into the power, make sure your Value Prop can back up your initial offering or claim. Until you can deliver, don’t be so quick to make the connection.
• Don’t assume that the power you need to access is at the top of the organization.
• Remember, power lies with the person who can say “yes” to your product or service, wherever they may be in the organizational structure.

Anyone involved in complex B2B sales is probably used to hearing the oft-repeated mantra, “get access to power” – gaining access to high levels of power within prospective organization is key – everyone, from sales trainers to sales VPs agree that you need it… but how exactly do you get access to power?

The answer from most sales training programs I’ve seen: just do it.

Unfortunately, sales training programs often have no real advice on HOW to do it. The simple truth is that access to power is hard to get. It’s not something you can “just do,” but it is something you can get good at.

You need access to the right people, and the right messages for those people when you’re given that access. If you’re a McKinsey Partner, you’ve got the organizational/personal clout to talk to most large company CEOs. In other words, a real understanding of power is connected to a realistic assessment of your organization and your offering. Reckless boldness can be offensive, and even embarrassing. Getting to the top for a short dialogue isn’t enough, if you’ve got nothing to back it up.

There is no “easy button” to making the sale. You have to make your organization and offering valuable to your prospect, and communicate that value to the right and necessary levels of the buying organization. That doesn’t always mean the very highest levels either.

I once worked with a firm that offered graphic support services. Their lead sales rep always focused on getting to top management of the ad agencies that made up their target market. He didn’t need to do that. The agency president or senior partner didn’t care one way or the other about graphic support, but their project managers did. Those project managers had the power to make those decisions, and the budget to find them. After some key coaching – we focused the rep on going to the right level – the highest level that could approve budget for their services.

In this day of increasingly flat organizations, we find authority at lower levels than ever before. The executive suite focuses on bigger things – markets, public relations, and long-term strategy. Unless your service offering addresses those issues, the CFO, CTO, President, or Chief Yahoo! isn’t going to care. You don’t necessarily have to get to the C-suite to win business – you have to get to the right suite.

You need access to the highest-level decision maker who affects your purchase order. Access to the top isn’t bad, but it isn’t the be-all-and-end-all. Most importantly, you have to know who you are talking to and why.

The day where a single individual could sign off on a $100,000 purchase order is long gone in most organizations. The Martha Stewart and Enron cases were real and their repercussions have had a ripple effect in all aspects of the broader marketplace (hello Sarbanes-Oxely). These few but crucial instances in recent business history have drastically affected the climate of oversight, checks and balances in which buyers engage in big-ticket sales. Yet, this represents only a single, generalized example of how buyer behavior affects your firm’s market entry.

I had a client, Jack, whose company produces a retail product under exclusive license with an internationally known “household name”. Jack was going through some major struggles with some big volume deals that caused a major cash flow crunch. Over a period of 24 months – it seemed everything contracted and he was in trouble. The Internet had largely replaced mail order catalogs. Retail outlets for his product were shifting towards online sales relationships, and they were also cutting back on their staff corporate buyers. Where there used to be 20 buyers, there was often now only one.

The market changed around Jack in a way that he didn’t even realize until it was almost too late. He was in a tough spot. Revenues were declining and his business was scrambling. I told him to take out his order book and look at his historic client base. He actually had a huge Bible-like book of clients and phone numbers. Every week, I said to Jack, “Take out your book– pick up the phone. Who did you call this week?”

Jack did not initially understand why his market had changed, and that he needed to personally and proactively make calls. I nagged and nagged – Come on, Jack, just pick up the phone! He would not, so finally we hired someone to do it for him. This began his company’s turn-around – squeezing out orders and buying Jack time to reorganize his marketing focus to the new realities.

The lesson from Jack: you have to look at what is going on in your marketplace before it’s too late. And when you realize that shifts are taking place, you’ve got to have the gusto to do something about it – just pick up the phone!

If you don’t know where you’re going, it doesn’t much matter which direction you take the organization. Objectives are necessary in order to have a clear and clean cut view of where the organization is going.

There are strategic and tactical objectives, which document the future of the firm or a specific market roll-out. They should be built around concept of messaging must be central, so both strategic and tactical objectives support the validation, communication and execution of the product’s Value Proposition– representing a set of promises that your target market will agree is innovative, indispensable and inspiring.

Strategic objectives are the high-level goals that drive strategy and long-term direction. These include corporate goals (which lay out the major, grand-scheme plans of the organization), financial goals (the key financial metrics that drive the firm’s success), and market impact goals (the key metrics that will allow you to measure your position or success in the marketplace, such as market share, markets served, number of customers, etc.)

Tactical objectives aren’t tasks, per se, but are more immediately tangible than strategic objectives. They reflect the key areas of project management, overall efficiency and time management, and translate easily into “to-do list” items for your Action Plan, and benchmarks for your timeline.

Keep objectives as clear and specific as possible. Use time-bound targets that are as measurable as possible. For example: Sell 100,000 units by May of 20xx for revenue of $$$ million.

IT Industry research leader, Gartner, Inc. comments on the importance of tying goals to actionable strategy and results: “Aspiring ‘to be the market leader’ or ‘to be seen by our clients and partners in their success’ is admirable, but lacks the specificity and clear linkage to action and measurable results to propel go-to-market efforts.”

Do you know where you’re going? Have you established major strategic objectives as well as tangible tactical objectives? Are these goals clear, specific, and measurable?

In my last post, I included a video in which Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less, suggests that while some choice is a good thing, a lot of choices might not be.

If you look at how Japanese automotive companies established their beachhead in terms of small car sales when they first came to the United States in the 1970s, there were some cultural and economic factors that were in their favor, such as the cost of gas and so on, but the other part of it was that they just had a simpler line-up.

They radically simplified the number of varieties you can have of a particular car model and that made it much simpler for a consumer to say, for example, “I think I want to buy a Honda.” Your head didn’t have to explode in making that decision.

General Motors, on the other hand, is the perfect example of what happens if you offering is too spread out. For years, GM had all these brands– Chevy, Buick, Pontiac, etc… –and none of them were particularly good or reliable (IMHO)! Now, they’ve finally gotten rid of a bunch of lines they previously could never bring themselves to shoot down (forced to do so by their recent bankruptcy and reorganization).

Once again, the lesson to be gleaned from this is to examine your desire to provide variety – and do what marketers like to do – which is to stratify a market to capture little pieces of everything along the continuum. Does that actually undermine your opportunity to create a distinct beachhead in a given market, with a superior offering for that market?

It’s counter-intuitive in a lot of cases. Naturally, you’d say, “Well, I want to offer a different color for everyone’s taste, so I can sell more stuff,” but go back to the example of the iPhone again. You can’t get an iPhone 4g other than with a black back. They don’t have the option of a white casing, like the previous incarnations did. Now, perhaps that could have been a manufacturing thing, whatever, it doesn’t matter. The point is, that’s it! It’s black. That’s what you’re going to get. Moreover, it’s cool. They sold you on it, and that’s how it is.

As much as we intuitively think variety and freedom of choice are good, we gravitate towards companies and products that FOCUS the variations offered and the choices we have to make. Does your company offer a lot of options? Too many? How could you simplify your offering, and streamline your customers’ decision-making process?

It’s a familiar scene– a guy walks into a Starbucks looking for a cup of coffee, looks up, and stares at the menu like a deer in headlights for five minutes, overwhelmed by all the choices he has to make before he can pay $4 for his delicious beverage. Cappuccino, frappuccino, macchiato, americano, mocha, latte or brewed coffee? What size? How many shots of espresso? Hot or cold? Regular, decaf, or half-caf? Skim, whole, 2%, or soy? Do you want a flavor in that? Whipped cream? For here or to go?

We’ve all turned on the TV, flipped through 500 channels and gave up and turned it off because “there’s nothing on.”

It may seem counterintuitive, but freedom of decision often leads to indecision. In this video clip, Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less, talks about this puzzling phenomenon, and suggests that while some choice is a good thing, a lot of choices might not be. (It’s a little long, but worth watching!)

I couldn’t agree more with the central idea that one can offer too many choices. In fact, a great case in counter-point is Apple. Apple has refined the art of reducing options without making consumers feel constrained. Compare them to, lets say, a company who’s lunch they’re eating (IMHO): Research in Motion. RIM keeps coming out with a new model seemingly every day, and it makes it hard to make a Blackberry decision.

If you want to buy an iPhone, the only decision you really have to make is how much memory you want. There’s not a whole lot of other options. You can argue that the choice between a 3GS and a 4G is a choice, and it is, of a kind, but fundamentally, the way you’re going to interact with the device is identical. Whereas Blackberry offers phones that flip open, one that slides out, one that doesn’t even have a keyboard – and all these things are things that make you wonder if you’re making the right choice. On top of that, Blackberry (and Apple will soon follow) is offered on many networks, with phone varieties that are carrier specific.

In the case of the iPad, again, there’s really only two decisions: Do you need 3G, or WiFi? That’s the big decision (the other is 16GB, 32GB or 64GB – which is less complex) and I know all about that choice, because I went through that very decision when my wife surprised me with an iPad on my birthday. She said she wasn’t sure which I needed, so she got the WiFi model, but I could exchange it for the 3G version if I wanted.

I found myself paralyzed between desperately wanting to open up the box and tear off the cellophane wrap– but knowing that once I did that, because there’s a big restocking fee, there would be no turning back– or I had to get to the mall to get the other one.

I wrestled with that decision for nearly an hour, debating what I should do. That choice made it hard for me. I ended up, like most boys with toys, choosing to tear open the cellophane and enjoy my iPad immediately. Immediate gratification won out. I don’t regret that decision, for a variety of other reasons, but the point is, choices make it hard.

What do you think? Is it better to have more options, or to keep it simple?

[Stay tuned for part two]

It’s not easy. Successful integration of the sales and marketing functions is a difficult course. Salespeople often claim that marketers are out of touch with customers, while marketers argue that the sales force over-focuses on meeting the needs of an individual customer just to win the next deal. The balance between focusing on the overall market verses an individual customer is a difficult equilibrium to achieve.

It is a valid point that marketing tends to have a mountain top view, in contrast to the sales department’s ground-level view of the same marketplace. Generalizations are risky and it is important to note that both groups need to have at least a basic understanding of the overall marketplace as well as individual clients in order to make informed decisions.

Plus, even assuming that Corporate or Product Marketing has a high degree of accountability to revenue (which they don’t always have – at least not in the direct way that sales does), their decisions are made with quite a different time horizon than sales – before and after products are rolled out, while the sales time horizon is now. Naturally, this can cause some tension. Both parties are looking at the same set of facts, but assessing them quite differently – based on a different scope and scale.

Both views are critical for each function to do their jobs. Sharing views would be even more valuable to companies, most of which do not have successful integration policies for marketing and sales. To speak in metaphorical terms, marketing, with its high-level view, is able to see all that is unfolding on the battlefield below. Meanwhile, sales does battles every day on the front line, privy to a close up view of what’s going on at ground level.

Each group sees things the other cannot. There are things about customers and competitors visible at ground-level, that aren’t clear from a “bird’s eye” view. From the top, marketing sees clouds in the distance and the approaching competition that can change the way the marketplace will function in the near future. Prospects often tell salespeople how fierce or defeated the competition really is. Both have precious knowledge that becomes even more valuable when it is exchanged – and costly when the exchange does not take place.

Obviously, both marketing and sales professionals have the potential to see both sides of the coin and if these departments do communicate effectively, they will both have a much richer understanding of what is going on.

When successful integration and information exchange takes place, the sales “troops” at ground level know what is on the horizon and are better able to design solutions for customers. Likewise, marketing would be better able to support sales teams with what they need, when they know what is going on at ground level. Lastly, marketing can take advantage of the many thousands of hours their sales force is investing with clients in real conversations – an almost shameful loss of market intelligence in organization that don’t tap it, formally or informally. In your company, is that intel being used, or wasted?

Does sales share the details they can see from their “ground-level” perspective with marketing? Does marketing keep sales apprised of what’s happening in the larger market landscape?

What might help your marketers and salespeople understand each others’ perspectives, and feel like they’re playing for the same team? How can they work together to better meet both your customers’ needs and your company’s goals?

“Remarkable marketing is the art of building things worth noticing.”
—Seth Godin, author, “Purple Cow”

Product excellence and possessing stellar sales teams are “givens” in today’s B2B world. Existing business literature and marketing “science” have created a global economy in which product and sales excellence are now considered the baseline or “table stakes” for business—the minimum for companies to enter the game.

In a world where most players are aware of the baseline for competition, you need to meet that baseline level of performance to simply close the first deal or attract any market interest at all. Promises of excellent customer service or product excellence, by themselves, just don’t cut it as differentiators, even if you are strong in those areas (as demonstrated in the video in my last post). They’re the foundation of good business, but think about it<— you lay the foundation of a building, and what do you have?

A well-fortified hole in the ground.

You don’t stop there, of course— you keep building on that foundation. It’s what you do above the ground—beyond the minimum prerequisites of good customer service and basic functionality —that people notice.

These givens are the “infrastructure” of current business practices, which serve to elevate the importance of strategic messaging to a higher plane.

The entire organization and its culture must center upon the message of the company and its product. While at first blush, this might sound like a dangerous disregard for those fundamental, “real” aspects of business value— quality, features and support— it actually affirms these attributes.

By pulling the entire organization together around the message the company wants to communicate, “disconnects” in quality, features and support become even more evident and urgent. As champion NASCAR crew chief Ray Evernham put it, “Everyone should feel as if his signature is on the finished product.”

• So, what should the business product or services vendor do?
• How do you make messaging— the communication of value to the marketplace— an integrative process (vs. simply another functional process)?
• How do you build your go-to-market process and plan around your messaging?

“The customer is always right” did not start out as an adage to be taken literally. Popularly attributed to the once major Chicago department store Marshall Fields, it used to mean to make the customer feel special.  It was a catchphrase that was drilled into salespeople’s minds to ensure they behave whenever they faced their customers.

The expression has since blown up into a powerful consumer argument, one that has driven businesses to turn a keener ear toward their markets. In many ways, this has helped leverage the success of many brands and businesses. By listening to what the customers have to say, companies get a better idea on what needs to be improved on their products or services.

The rise of social media as a marketing tool has helped give the consumers a more active role in the shaping of today’s brands. Fashion designers, for example, who have been locked up in their ivory towers for so long have finally been shaken up thanks to the online suggestions of fans and patrons. After reading so many tweets from followers wanting his brand to release more plus-size pieces, designer Marc Jacobs decided to heed their call. He promises his next project will be more plus-size friendly.

This is not to say that businesses should immediately reach for the drawing board when they see any customer comments or complaints. When fans of Ann Taylor commented that her newest pant design for LOFT only looked good on skinny, tall, model-esque frames, she and her fashion brand responded by uploading photos of employees wearing the same pants in sizes ranging from 2-12. Her company didn’t change anything but it did succeed in reassuring consumers that it understands their concerns.

Reflecting on the two cases, perhaps it is better to say, “The customer is never wrong.” Changing the adage into a double negative changes its implications. With, “The customer is always right,” it implies that the hand of power lies solely in the customers’ side. This is not always true. Like I’ve said before, it is one thing to cater to the consumer’s specific needs, and another to spoil them. The balance is better seen in the modified saying.

Times Square in New York City is a place that is always abuzz with activity. Apart from the never-ending flood of people and vehicles hustling through the streets, the buildings are covered in colorful, sprawling billboards, promoting the latest movies and musicals, or enticing people to notice a brand.

For decades, agencies have tried to make the most creative outdoor advertisements possible, with the purpose of encouraging viewers to obtain the product or service they’ve blown up and put on display. Recently, though, I’ve observed a subtle change in the way a lot of billboards are being laid out. Rather than emphasize sales promotions, many are focusing on engagement marketing. It is not uncommon to see a Twitter URL or a Facebook fan page pasted somewhere on a billboard.

The same can be said for TV commercials. An increasing number of ads are integrating social media into their campaigns. Products ranging from breakfast cereals to shaving razors are ending their ads with a quick “Follow Me” blurb, if not an encouragement to visit the brand’s official website.

The addition of a social media aspect on the ads we see in real life is a perfect example of seamlessly integrating sales with marketing efforts. We live in an over-advertised and oversold society. Hard-sell sales promotions are no longer as effective as they were in past decades. Today, for a marketing campaign to be effective, it is important that the message can be immediately connected to reality. The promise of the brand must be met once it has been bought and used. Putting a “Follow Me” at the end of the ad is like a stamp of credibility. It also encourages consumers to share their experiences with the brand, painting a picture of trust, as well as utilitarian effectiveness.

It is much easier to ask people to visit a social site than to get them to buy a product. No money will be spent to engage with the brand, nor would it consume too much time. If the viewer happens to be one of the product’s loyal consumers, he would probably welcome giving digital support to the brand.

Social media allows for the humanization of brands. The consumers can interact directly with the brand and contribute to its campaign. It fosters a dynamic relationship that may very well result in an increase in sales and heightened brand loyalty.

There used to be a time when ads had to be written with hyperbole. ‘Amazing,’ ‘Miraculous’ and ‘Spectacular’ made common appearances in old print ads, usually in large bold letters. Add to that a few more impressive, flowery phrases and an image of a person with a wide-mouthed smile, and the product was almost as good as sold.

Selling meant singing nothing but praises, and getting customers to buy was the only end point for marketing efforts.

And then… it changed. Over the years, sales and marketing have become quite sophisticated due in part to evolving consumer behaviors and expectations. Today’s customers are not as so easily wowed by “smoke and mirrors”. It is not enough that marketers say their product is the best. Even ‘New!’ doesn’t work as well any more. We live in an over-saturated — over-messaged – marketplace. Nothing is really new, and every trick in the book has already been tried and tested. Smoke and mirrors, flowery words and calls to action do nothing except annoy consumers and make them ignore the product being promoted in that way. Of course, direct marketing and hard sells live on in the world of infomercials – but fundamental brand advertising has changed.

Now, selling means providing solutions, and the end point of marketing is something much more long-lasting and substantial than simply getting a single sale.

Developing an effective value proposition is the first step to effective sales and marketing. The principle entails sending targeted messages rather than making broad sweeping promotions. Instead of “Buy this now,” it should be “Here’s what we can do for you.” Customers want the respect and autonomy to obtain products and services at their own leisure and according to their own considered criteria. They also like knowing what’s in it for them. Ask yourself: Would you buy something simply because someone told you to?

Building brand loyalty can be considered a much higher priority than making sales. Sporadic deals won’t get the company anywhere in the long run. With a loyal customer base, the company can build continued success. It is a win-win situation for both sides, as the customers will be getting what they want while the company can streamline their marketing efforts and focus their marketing budgets to yield greater ROI on dollars spent.

• Does your marketing speak to long term benefits?
• Does your messaging meet your best buyers in their language?
• Are you counting on tricks and clever words to close the deal?

The story of David and Goliath is, of course, a classic Biblical story. Some of you might have heard it at Sunday School when you were kids.

The headline would read: “Shepherd boy defeats giant, using only slingshot and a few carefully chosen stones!”

The story is often told as a metaphor for the victory of the underdog — how a small, usually insignificant entity can overthrow the dominating opposition.

In the realm of marketing and sales, the Davids are small businesses while the Goliaths are big, established brands. The latter overshadows its little competitors by their sheer size and reach. Everyone knows about Starbucks, what to buy there and how much it costs. The same cannot be said for the local café down the other block.

Using Size as an Advantage

Sure, a small company may not have the same strengths as the ‘big guys,’ but that doesn’t mean it lacks other competitive strengths at all. A more compact scale can give a business a different edge over its established competition. Small businesses tend to be nimble and flexible, able to act fast and adapt to changes quickly. This can be a definite differentiator. The company must be able to exert some control over its market, however. It is one thing to cater to the consumer’s specific needs, and another to spoil them. If a small company modifies every single deal to meet specific customer requests, it may run the risk of stifling its own growth.

Pick Your Stones and Sling Well

Before David went out to defeat Goliath, he went off to a nearby brook to pick out the stones for his sling. For a small business to match up with larger competition, it should be able to pinpoint its unique selling points and position them well to draw in its audience. What does your small business have that the big company doesn’t? It can be anything from more affordable prices to an exclusive product offering. Or it can simply be that you are more familiar with the target market than the giant looming around the corner. Whatever it is, the best way to beat Goliath is by capitalizing on your own strengths.

Sharply defining your customer is a “starting block” for your go-to-market race.

• How many of them are there?
• What size?
• What is the published market research?
• Are there demographic and market research reports written on your target market?

In today’s sophisticated marketing world, you can’t go after a market without being armed with data – fortunately there’s lots of it.

At this stage of the game, you’re not necessarily looking at the way the market works, but simply defining the kind of company that your product or service most fits. Ultimately, it’s about knowing your customer. In every market segment, there are cultures, commonalities, unspoken rules of the game that exist in enclaves of the high tech, business and manufacturing worlds.

You need to know what these are. If you don’t have a feel for the people you’re selling to, you’re already at risk of falling further behind your competition.

While with a consulting firm focused on smaller business services firms, we worked with a small regional web design company with heavy specialization in user experience and interface design. As is typical for companies this size, they defined their customers primarily by geography – any business in their area needing help with larger web projects. Over a two-year period we helped them refocus on one particular market segment they had past success with – large, socially focused non-for-profit organizations.

While this was a positioning move, it was much deeper than just looking a certain way to a particular market – or choosing which mailing list to use. By focusing on the specific non-for-profit sector, they were able to start understanding the target customer’s culture, eventually adopting the language, pace and unspoken “feel” of the non-for-profit world.

They’re back on track, growing revenues and profits with a dedicated core of clients who view them as their specialist firm for web design and deployment in the non-for-profit field. In the same way, your understanding of your target customer will influence your marketing and the direct sales communication you have with them and the way you interact and serve them.

Adapted from the forthcoming eBook, “Know Thy Customer” by Jose Palomino

What level decision maker can you access?

If you want to sell to a specific type of company, you need to have access to call, talk and meet with the appropriate level of decision maker at that customer – whatever it takes to sell your product to them. Maybe you need to have access to CFOs of financial services organizations to sell your compliance solution.

While you may have many years and dollars worth of experience selling to financial services firms, you might find that you have no way to get your foot in the door of the C-suite, if your company never worked at that level before. That’s not to say that this marketing and sales capability cannot be acquired or developed – just that you need to know where you’re starting from and identify the gap as quickly as possible.

The “access” issue can go the other way, too. In the product development process, larger software developers often end up creating simpler versions that they try to sell “down market” to smaller customers. Yet, they don’t know the smaller customers (SMB) – the way they function, and what’s important to them. They often do not really know how to access this smaller customer (as in the Cisco example above).

It isn’t primarily a product issue – it is simply that a company that has been selling to Fortune 500 companies will face the same challenge connecting with decision makers in a $50 million dollar manufacturing company that a SMB focused company would have calling on GE. Movement – both up or down market – is possible and many companies manage to do it successfully. However, many more have failed or have had to make many learning runs till they got it right (e.g., Microsoft moving up-market in corporate IT with server software).

Access challenges run both ways: smaller companies face challenges selling to bigger ones, but oftentimes, bigger players can’t get small enough to sell to smaller companies or individual buyers.

Adapted from the forthcoming eBook, “Know Thy Customer” by Jose Palomino

New products happen in different ways.

You may have designed your product or service with a specific customer in mind. You may have also “backed into” the development of an innovative product, and now you’re looking for an actual market. I’ve been called into client situations (more than once) where they’ve already invested millions of dollars into a product and then ask me – “How do I sell this? And, who should we sell it to?”

Sometimes, the development of a new product doesn’t start with a specific problem. You might think, “these are my current customers, how can I expand my offerings to them?” In this case, you’re looking to leverage customers you have access to today.

Other times, it’s not clear what the application of a new product will be. Companies that create large business solutions often stumble across other applications and tools to support the primary product, and say, “…there’s got to be some kind of market for this.” This is often true of services that arise around a specific technical product. Eventually it becomes clear that the services can be bundled and sold.

Then there are product “accidents.” In the late sixties, a 3M scientist stumbled upon glue that was not sticky enough. In 1974, Arthur Fry, another 3M scientist was singing in his church choir and became frustrated with his bookmarks falling out of his hymnal. He applied some of the “not sticky enough” glue to his bookmarks.

We know it today as the “post-it” note. But back then, the question that needed answering was “Would anyone else buy it?”
Of course, the answer was and is – “yes – billions!”

Adapted from the forthcoming eBook, “Know Thy Customer” by Jose Palomino