When it comes to understanding buyer behavior, one thing that always is taken note of is trends. Brands that set trends such as Apple’s  line of products show  it is possible for a brand to establish a value proposition that is driven by and in fact, drives style.  But how is it possible for a single brand to gain a following that can probably be considered close to cultish? Perhaps the answer lies in understanding the buzz that lies beneath the creation of a herd.

It is a very human need to belong and be part of something — herding is practically a basic human reaction. Take for instance the creation of a market for mobile gadgets. Since mobile technology kept people who were on that same technology together, others would get it as well. But, let’s say you’re going for something else. Let’s say your product is about being set apart from the rest.

The entire line of Apple’s products is probably the best case when it comes to being “different”. Its popular PC vs. Mac campaign attracted people by marketing themselves as different from the more popular and therefore more “boring” or “safer” brand. And even in its past campaigns, there was a focus on the Mac user being the innovative one—the clearly different one. The value proposition placed on Apple’s products was based more on a focus of who its users were instead of simply what the product is about.

So, is it possible to create a value proposition for your own brand through a focus on users? Definitely. And it helps in the creation of buzz as well. If the brand encourages a youthful image with the right features to go with it, then it isn’t a far-fetched idea to market it as something used by a youthful market. Creating an image to go with the brand is a powerful way to draw in a herd.

And a herd is even easier to keep nowadays with the latest marketing tools that put a higher premium on community building and being social. With the right mix of marketing, it becomes possible to build a brand’s value on the quality of its community alone.

Is your product or service clearly connecting with a specific customer? Does its style and brand elements align to that target market?

Related articles for further reading:

• Mac vs PC Guy Commercials May Not Be Over Yet (corporate-eye.com)
• Crowdsourcing: Beyond the Basics (convinceandconvert.com)
• Microsoft launches “PC vs. Mac” site to explain why Macs are no good (geek.com)

Gone are the days when companies would simply create a product or service, market it and hope for a successful, profitable outcome. Products and services are now deeply commoditized and consumers are increasingly fickle and hard to please. People don’t just want something to spend their money on; they want solutions. They want something that can satisfy a specific need in a specific way. It is a must for companies and marketers to understand this basic consumer reality.

Innovative, Indispensible, Inspirational.

Innovative, Indispensible, Inspirational. These are the three I’s of an effective Value Proposition. If you want to make your brand work, you’ve got to cater to your target consumers’ needs. We’re not just talking about basic  needs here. A product or service can also satisfy emotional and perhaps even spiritual needs. It all depends on how you position your offering.

Is it innovative? Does your product bring something new to the table? Have you discovered a need nobody thought they had, or are you riding the bandwagon with a me-too offering? Is your offering truly useful/beneficial over time? That is, does it represent a continuous stream of goodness to its owner?  Does your your brand  inspire action or complacency? By answering these questions, among others, you can pinpoint the ideal way to market your product. The next step is to see if the target audience is going to be receptive to the messages you send.

Know thy customer. It is a crucial commandment that must be heeded, if you want your brand messages to come across positively. We  live in an age where information is easily accessible. Especially information about how your product is doing in multiple dimensions besides “unit sales”. Not too long ago, it wasn’t practical to do intensive consumer research, simply because by the time enough information has already been gathered, it  was already be obsolete and useless for brand-building.

The Internet is a great way to find out about your target market and its specific needs. The rise of social media has made it incredibly easy for companies to connect with consumers and find out their current needs. By becoming receptive to your followers or potential buyers, you can have a greater idea of what makes them tick and translate that into your brand. You can raise the power of I3 with the aid of Internet tools.

Moms are such sociable persons, moving from one social event to another, not only get-togethers or work-related events, but in social networks online! The new mom is really the master social networker – making the rounds of her children’s parties and school events, employing her smartphone and computer heavily as she manages a home or online business. While this is happening, she also has a thousand Facebook friends and hundreds more following her on Twitter.

This makes mothers a formidable force in the wonderful world of consumer marketing. And marketers must sit up and notice. The new millennium ushered in smart, tech-savvy, discriminating moms who can really rave about a product or service that they really like and rant and beat you to a pulp if they’ve been had. But that’s just one Mom. Imagine this mom telling other moms who will tell other moms who will tell other moms…you get the picture. Moms can really spread the word around like some kind of virus and voila! You have an effective viral marketing strategy already working for you.

There’s no magic trick in knowing what clicks well with moms. Just get to know her. Some tips:

• Know your mom. Some moms stay at home, some work at home, and some work away from home. All moms are different with varied styles in running their household. Get to know them well and what appeals to them.
• Go online. Moms need not lug their children around to various stores to check out new products to try anymore. All they have to do is just go to the Net and surf to shop. Ideally, moms should be able to easily purchase your product online. Come up with a good website that will appeal to the mommy market.
• Give something they can learn from. Moms are smart. They study, research and make comparisons and contrasts about anything that they’ve heard or read or seen from somewhere or from someone in the Internet. Have some valuable content handy in your website that could validate your claims and make them want to purchase your products.
• Time is gold. Moms are the greatest multitaskers, but they’d really appreciate it if you maximize their productivity. Make it easy for them to understand your product or service. Zero in on how your product or service could benefit her and her family.
• Savings, savings, savings. Offer free shipping, discounts, freebies, gifts or anything that will entice them and make them feel that they got extra value for their money. Remember, value is key to many a mom’s buying decisions.

Part 2 of 3 of a Conversation with B.J. Orsi, Regional Manager, Bed Bath & Beyond.

B.J. Orsi is one of twelve Bed Bath & Beyond Regional Managers, each overseeing about 40-50 Store Managers, who, in turn, each manage about four Department Managers. B.J. has been at the company for over twenty years. I recently had the pleasure of talking with him about how his company operates and what sets it apart in the marketplace. I am sharing some key ideas from that conversation in three blog posts, of which this is the second.

Today, I continue with that conversation – with what B.J. said about how his company promotes a teaching culture that allows managers to earn their promotions by training those below them.

Jose: How do managers know what customers want?

B.J.: To do that effectively you must be on the sales floor all the time and get to know who they are. In return, you are developing an understanding of how to get to know each individual and how to motivate them and teach them leadership skills and learning the merchandise. Our systems tell us what sells, and so forth, but computers don’t tell you everything. So you have to be on the floor to really identify what the customer is looking for and ask them, what didn’t they find? What is it they want? and to do that I need to spend a lot of time on the floor.

Jose: How does this tie into leadership development?

B.J.: Since there are planograms and schematics to manage, you can’t sit in the office and delegate. You cannot have the merchandising executed at the level you want without a lot of involvement. Because that store manager has been through all of these areas, he or she has to spend a lot of time on the floor and will have lots of hands-on training, talking through development, and demonstrating to get to what they want to see happening. So, it is company culture that they are on the floor much more often than with other retailers because we are not looking through books for schematics and planograms.

We are on the floor and we are analyzing, Hey, does this look right or make sense? How do we merchandise to this buyer by look, by function, by price point? What do you think? What does the customer think? Or maybe, Try it this way or next week let’s experiment by putting it in a different way. So it really takes a lot of hands-on involvement with the customers and the employees to really execute the standards we are looking for as a company.

Jose: So, you have created a teaching organization which is really interesting the way you described it. In a lot of corporate cultures, the way you advance is by killing the person in front of you. You know what I mean? You have to undermine the guy in front of you. Of course, you’d get a toxic environment as a result (but lots of companies have them). To have a teaching organization which says, No, the way you advance is by advancing those under your charge is a huge, and not a subtle, difference.

B.J.: Other centralized, more cookie-cutter, retailers can take on someone with a little bit of retail experience. Most retailers today are operators for lack of a better term. These organizations are looking for good soldiers and they operate a business from the top down. We operate from the bottom-up. Those good soldiers could walk into some retailer in 4-6 weeks and be a store manager and operate that business because they are following their planograms, schematics, while most of the critical decisions are made up in the corporate office and they are simply executing.

Our company is different and that’s why it doesn’t take 4-6 weeks to be a store manager. It could take 12-18 months or even 2 years to become a store manager because you have to learn everything. We are working from the ground up and are really training them to think and be autonomous so that they can run that business on their own and really be very successful. They can continue to drive the business by developing their people, finding out what the customers want and then giving it to them.

Jose: I’ve always felt that Bed Bath & Beyond is a good store to walk into and have a pleasant experience. But this explains how you get there.

B.J.: I think I am an ideal example of this because I started as an hourly employee in college and did not expect to work at Bed, Bath & Beyond forever. I just wanted a quick buck through school and was promoted through department manager to assistant store manager and also moved throughout the country. I have been with the company for over 22 years now! So I have started at the very ground level as an hourly and then moved to where I am today.

Jose: Wow! That is a great story.

========
My third and final blog post based on this conversation will discuss the idea of learning from other organizations in the industry.

We all have friends who love to recommend websites. Every time they stumble upon a site they like, they share it on Twitter or post it on their Facebook wall. If they like a blog post, they’ll share a link to it – but – if they like the overall look or theme, they’ll add “cool site for women!” or “great, great articles on leadership!” or some other specific attribute that they favor.

Such is the power of a great-looking and content-rich site. No wonder sales and marketing people spend much time and money creating the best possible website to get attention, to sell, to influence, to move people to action.

Your Homepage – where it begins
Look at your homepage. Does it clearly communicate what your company does? Without having to go through the other pages of your site, can people tell what you’re all about and what they can get from you?

Some people think that a value proposition is a mere line or two on your website or marketing materials. Of course, a value prop is much more. And a website is more than just a brochure online. It is the face of any business, and it is where you can emphasize your competitive advantage and your value proposition.

Evaluating your site

Whenever you come across a new website for the first time, what’s the first thing you notice? Is it the design? The list of articles? The banner ads?

Ask any sales or marketing person, and they’ll tell you how valuable a website is to a business. If you evaluate your site, or ask people to evaluate it for you, what do the results tell you? Does your site need a makeover? Is your design too bright or too dull? Is it difficult to navigate? Is your Web copy or blog content boring?

• You want people talking about your site, and your products and/or services.
• You want them telling their friends and family about it.
• You want good word of mouth to spread naturally and eventually, you want your target market to buy.

Take a serious look at your website today, and determine if it’s helping drive your business’ success and is it doing a good job telling the world about your value proposition – the what and why your offerings matter.

Remember when we were little kids and were often reminded by our parents to say ‘please,’ ‘may I’ and ‘thank you?’ These words are short and simple, but are very powerful nonetheless.

As we grow to be adults and strive to achieve success in our careers, we often forget the power of these words and fail to remember that using them often can go a long way. They can earn us respect, gratitude, admiration and yes, love.

Marketing and salespeople should learn a thing or two from one of kindergarten school’s most valuable lessons: politeness and gratitude.

When was the last time you said thank you to a new or returning customer? Personalized thank you notes are a way to get more business. Check out some sample thank-you notes for sales and you’ll see what we mean.

Saying thank you is one of the most excellent habits to cultivate. Words of gratitude are always wonderful to hear. It does not only make the recipient feel good – it makes YOU, the speaker, feel good as well.

In this buy-and-sell-oriented world, a simple ‘thank you’ means a lot, and it’s also one of the things that make customers, clients and prospects come back. Thank-you notes, whether in physical form or sent via email, are a great opportunity to put your name in front of your customers, strengthen relationships, and help you stand out.
Here are some key opportunities for saying ‘thank you’:

• Getting new business from a person or a team
• Getting a flattering remark or suggestion from a client, customer or even an employee
• Getting referrals from a client or customer
• Getting excellent work done by employees that led to more customers

There are plenty of ways to say thank you. As a marketer or salesperson, get creative. Never underestimate, in particular, the power of a handwritten thank you note. Whether you say these words in person, via email or over the phone, deliver it with much enthusiasm and really mean it. It can make a big difference in the way you do business, and in how the world sees you.

What’s a disruptor?

You can’t only be aware of current competitors in the marketplace. Companies must take the time today to think about tomorrow, in particular, the disruptors, game-changing products and solutions that will fundamentally impact the marketplace. Disruptors are solutions that are so revolutionary (in the context of a given market) that they fundamentally impact buyer behavior – significantly changing it from that point forward. Buyer’s expectations radically change, forcing previously existing competitors to adapt to the disruptor … or die.

Predicting disruption is difficult, but it’s not rocket science. In short, companies that will succeed and exist in the future are the ones that really know and understand their marketplace now.

• First, companies must have a deep understanding of existing problems their customers are trying to solve. They must also have a deep understanding of the the way the marketplace currently functions and addresses those needs.
• Second, they must also be aware of emerging trends and technology that promise to better solve their customers’ problems.
• Third, companies must accept the reality of a fluid marketplace. That is, the market (any market) is unpredictable. In short, is your organization committed to becoming an adaptive one. You have to decide to adapt or die.

The cycle of disruption is simple. It begins with a customer problem. Something – an issue – that resolving would be worth something to someone. Current companies form solutions to that or related problems. All is happy in vendor-land. They bump and bruise one another along the way as competitors and start making money.

Then, crash! boom! Someone unexpected enters the marketplace and completely changes the game.

Something fresh and new and unexpected. (don’t be confused with the “rear view mirror” effect, where the new entrant looks obvious and predictable – it wasn’t and isn’t). Existing companies who don’t adapt or offer some new-additional value to their current solutions are soon forced out of the marketplace or at least find their margins significantly crimped. So, if your were a local print shop terrified by FexEx Kinkos – uprinting.com and other on-demand, online, providers are to be feared even more. And… those new ink-jet printers and lasers that print fast and great small runs – they’re eating your lunch too. Companies who adapt and send a message of value – relative to the now, changed landscape – to their customers get to continue into the future, until the cycle repeats and changes the game again.

The Future is Now

Perhaps the best solution to dealing with disruptors is to know your marketplace and customers so well that your company is the one introducing “disruptive” solutions into the marketplace. But if you’re not that far ahead of the game, you must be ready to adapt quickly to new entrants. Stay close to your customers, know what they need, and be ready to address their changing expectations.

Oh, and keep your eyes on left field.

In a recent MSNBC.com article, James McQuivey, principal analyst for Forrester Research, says, “I don’t believe for a second that we’re ‘meh’ on new technology. Instead, we’re very sophisticated in what is going to get our attention. A fancy new device that doesn’t improve on the devices we already have, or a promised service that we can’t go out and buy yet, won’t be able to get our attention.”
[ipad, google buzz, 3D-TV: 'meh'? (Feb. 12th, 2010) by Suzanne Choney]

I couldn’t agree more. In fact, McQuivey is saying that new things entering a market have to be truly new – and not just new, but very useful – and not just very useful, but exciting.

Of course, that’s another way of describing an “I3 value proposition”. I3 means not just clever words spinning a tale, but meaningful words describing a true-truth about your product or service. In increasingly crowded, hyper competitive, and fast-moving markets, you have to think in terms of how your target customer will process your offering in a sea of similar (or similar enough) offerings. Your consumer is probably not as much a student of your market as you are (or should be).

They may see the nuances that excite you as relatively minor feature changes.
Wow! 10% more efficient! – let’s have a parade! >>> your engineers. Ho hum – whatever >>> your customers.

Are there other ways to compete? Certainly there are! Being the low cost provider and having a radically different approach to a problem are competitive levers that companies must consider as they go to the market.

But, the bottom line is, if these distinctions are buried in minutia and are things that mean your customer has to study, or get a new degree, in order to understand the significance of it all – then you’re missing the real opportunity. And that opportunity is to think of something that is not being addressed in some way or something that is not being addressed in the mind, the eye, or the heart of your target customer.

This is true, whether that target customer is a housewife in Peoria, a college student in New York or a corporate executive at the top of the Sears Tower in Chicago.

Find the sweet-spot of frustration – address it – and gain fans, not just customers.

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

Whether you developed your product with a specific customer need in mind, or happened upon a product and want to sell it to someone, you have to start by knowing your customer.

Before the Internet boom, I assembled a group of friends and raised angel capital to start a company to develop a commodity chemical trading system, based on the notion that a hundred pounds of a specific chemical powder was the same as any other hundred pounds of the same chemical powder. It would be a trading system for chemicals – a brilliant idea – or so it seemed.

Along the way, the web “happened”, and it was gaining traction all around us.

Our company’s Chief Technologist developed a side-project to create dynamic websites for small businesses. Back then, things like Facebook and MySpace didn’t exist. It wasn’t easy to create a web presence or an identity on the Internet.

So, the idea was born – instant websites for smaller businesses.

We completely switched gears. While we started with what we thought was a brilliant idea, we came across something in development that we thought was even more valuable. Before we sold the company, we grew to several thousand customers – small change by today’s standards, but an interesting illustration of adaptation.

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

I want to share two simple stories to illustrate the same core issue:

First: Jane was the director of Knowledge Management at one of the major international consulting firms. She owned the budget for all of the firm’s market research activities, including contracts with Gartner, Forrester, Yankee Group and the like. What set our research company apart was our openness – we made our analysts easily accessible to our clients, in contrast to many of our competitors. We didn’t hide them behind an 800 number and a call screener and this differentiated us in the marketplace.

Jane’s account was one of my biggest contracts; I had a large renewal of a two-year deal, and if I missed it…well, you can imagine. I looked at their utilization (how often they accessed our research and contacted our analysts). They barely touched us. No one from the company was calling our analysts–and it was a large organization with nearly one hundred thousand employees.

I asked Jane why. She explained that her department charged back an allocated cost whenever anyone called one of our analysts. Jane’s organization was dividing the cost of the subscription and charging it to the departments only when they called us. Jane was charging departments over $500 an hour to talk to our analysts. Obviously, they didn’t want their budgets hit, so they avoided calling us.

I arranged to give Jane’s company an extra allotment of analyst calling hours for a specific time if her department didn’t charge back for utilization. Not surprisingly, utilization increased and many more potential users became aware of our value.

Lesson from above: you can have the most powerful value proposition – and an excited buying center, but other policies within the organization can undermine your success. Make sure you understand the way that your offering works its way through your customer – who is involved – there may be much more going on than you are aware.

In another case, I was with the same research firm, and I had a mid-sized renewal with a regional reseller of wireless services. I looked up their utilization, as in the prior example. The company never used any of our services. Not a good sign. As before, no utilization can mean you’re dead; it’s over – no renewal. For me, this was bad news. If I lost a renewal this big, we risked missing quota.

So I called and left voicemails – even sent faxes – urgently communicating, “let us help you figure out how our services can work for you. We can make this work.”

I had a week left before the renewal deadline. I called early mornings and late nights in hopes that I would get Lisa on the line. One early morning, a day before the due date, she finally picks up. “Is this about the renewal?” she asks nonchalantly. “What do we need to do for it?”

I explained that a simple signature on a renewal form is all that was needed. Lisa said, “OK, send me the paperwork, and I’ll sign and fax it back.” Like any seasoned sales professional, I bit my tongue, shut up and send the paperwork. I get it back, signed, in about five minutes.

(I’ll share another example in my next post.)

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

My favorite client also became one of my best friends. Tony was a Brooklyn-raised child of the Depression. He was an early IT professional – the kind that could talk about having programmed in IBM 1401 Autocoder language in the early sixties.

Tony took a chance on a self-taught PC programmer and hired me to manage “microcomputers” at a major financial services firm in the mid-eighties. He identified and affirmed my entrepreneurial spirit and encouraged it. I joined a truly great computer company because of Tony. A few years later, Tony brought me into his last job, where he helped me launch a new consulting firm.

All told, Tony touched my professional and personal life for nearly 20 years and several significant career moments. Tony has been gone for some time now and I miss him dearly still.

I remember being on the “buy-side” of many vendor meeting with Tony. If he felt the salesperson wasn’t respecting his intelligence – or if the rep wasn’t fully prepared… well, Tony wasn’t Brooklyn born and raised for nothing. He could cut to the main point and make an unprepared salesperson very, very uncomfortable.

However, I also saw something else – if Tony assessed that you were there to help – truly committed to finding answers that were mutually beneficial – then you would gain a fiercely loyal ally – a prospect that would go the extra mile to help a vendor close the deal.

I mention Tony in this discussion about customers to illustrate a simple point: in all of your planning for go-to-market, positioning and strategic advantage – don’t forget that at the heart of every business – every organization – you will find… people and relationships. The more strategic your offering is, the more this simple truth exerts influence on your go-to-market plans.

• People – not “organizations”, make business decisions. They make these decisions for many different reasons. Logic should and does win – often, but not always. And, it would be fair to argue that logic is used to substantiate an emotional decision – even big-ticket corporate purchases.
• Plans, message stacks and sales processes will fail you if you don’t infuse them with a sales culture that understands this truth.

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

You might want to look at the point in your launch cycle in which your company actually asks customers their opinion.

For example, a few years ago, BusinessWeek cited Xerox as typically developing products fully and then asking customers what they thought. Xerox has since refocused on customers from the onset in their product development timeline.

Stephen Hoover, vice-president of Xerox’s research and development hub commented, “The team had had a certain idea of what customers wanted. Going out and actually talking to them really changed that.”

The lesson here is not that Xerox experienced a “blinding flash of the obvious”, i.e., talk to customers before building new products. No, it is instructive in that it is easy for companies of all sizes and in all industries to approach markets from an “inside-out” mindset.

While customers are actually not the only influence on a marketplace, they are certainly the “hub of the wheel”. We forget this at our own peril.

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