So, why are you surprised? As hard as you work on closing significant sales, you think you might know better. Yet, even as a finalist, you find yourself sweating bullets while waiting to hear if you’ve won the deal.
This Seems Too Easy
“This is a three-billion-dollar market; if we can capture just one percent of that, we will crush it!” This is the type of statement often heard from champions of a business expansion effort.
Sounds like a great idea!
One of the most exciting things that happens in businesses of all stripes is innovation — the next generation of a product, a new product launch or market entry; perhaps a new go-to-market strategy.
Landing on an Asteroid
The importance of customer feedback in achieving sales success
The Power of Customer Insight
Don’t lose sight of human source data… The trend toward data-driven or supported business analytics has accelerated. And it is valid for most of the findings its proponent’s advance. Product-market mix planning, demand modeling, customer alerts, the list goes on.
Knowing What You Don’t Know
The challenge with business decisions around growth and innovation has always been managing the unknown. In the Covid era, with all the additional uncertainty, the challenge is even more pronounced. The good news is that companies who are pivoting, innovating, and focusing on performance are survivors. If this describes you and your firm, there is the strong likelihood of something good on the other side.
What’s your Pivot?
Applying Rigor to New Product or Services Innovation
Virtually every company I know is immersed in some kind of a Covid “Pivot”. For most companies, some part of their value delivery must adapt to our evolving situation. And we see lots of examples, where value delivery becomes digitized.
Sometimes the Most Painful Learning is the Most Valuable
Without even mentioning the “C-word”, you all know there has been a large exogenous force, just slightly smaller than a comet striking the planet, and disrupting our lives, to say the least.
Applying Customer Knowledge to Enhance Relationships
Loyalty is an emotion, nearly always described as a feeling – of confidence, of trust, of protecting one’s vulnerability, of being ‘somebody’ – a part of the inner circle. Throughout countless conversations, surveys, interviews and general interaction with members of loyalty programs, I can state without hesitation that the #1 driver of loyalty has been “they know me”.
Deep Listening – Sales Discovery as an Ongoing Process
All companies are committed to winning – but sometimes leadership teams don’t act like it. As much energy that goes into strategy and planning, CRM deployments and sales analytics – you would expect spectacular results.