The Power of “I Don’t Know”

Early in my prior life as a product manager, I realized that guessing at what customers want and need from products was not a sound strategy. That’s when my passion for soliciting insights from customers directly was born vs. taking a stab in the dark when faced with tough decisions. I’ll never forget one particular meeting I was in where we [...]

No better time to LISTEN to your customers!

If you’re like me, you have seen an INSANE increase to the volume of incoming emails in the past few months. It’s mind numbing: every single company you have ever had any kind of relationship with is reaching out to try to reassure you, attract you, differentiate themselves, and more. It’s just too much! (I knew things had gone over the [...]

Why Do Some Companies Avoid Research Like the Plague?

In a previous post about obstacles to win loss research, I talked about the fact that some companies just don’t do ANY research. Some of the reasons that companies don’t do research: Don’t trust their customers’ perspectives: Some companies are skeptical about their customers’ ability to be objective/overcome their biases.  Other companies consider their technology/concepts to be beyond their customers’ limited imagination.  [...]

Benchmarking Surveys – A Strategic Content Marketing Tool

Annual benchmarking studies are a secret weapon that some organizations are using to provide fuel for their content marketing efforts. Benefits: I’ve managed several annual benchmarking projects for clients and have seen them benefit in the following ways: Establish themselves/their organization as a ‘go to’ expert in their field Generate proprietary statistics/news that they can use as marketing and social media [...]

Understanding “Big Data”: What About Good Old Fashioned Customer Research?

Understanding your customers’ needs and wants and getting inside their heads about what challenges they face so you can figure out how to be invaluable to them is hugely important to business success. This information is data, regardless of how you GET that data. Conducting your own surveys, interviewing your customers, or buying syndicated market data. Plain and simple, it’s just data.

Dangers of DIY Surveys

There are many survey tools available which can make do-it-yourself surveys seem very attractive. In some cases, these tools are a good fit, however in many situations, it is beneficial to consider working with a research partner to evaluate what kind of research is required, what research strategy to use (are surveys the only tool needed?), design a survey that will [...]