The Purpose of Business “The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.” – Peter F. Drucker Creating and keeping a customer is only possible if you are satisfying a customer need better than other competitive options. Innovation and growth requires understanding the customers’ needs in order to deliver superior value. It’s hard …
Marketing Malpractice is Preventable According to researchers at John Hopkins University, the biggest mistake doctors make is misdiagnosing patient problems. It’s estimated that misdiagnosing errors lead to permanent damage or death for as many as 160,000 people each year and resulted in nearly $39 billion in malpractice claims paid out from 1986 – 2010. While “misdiagnoses …
R&D Investment Does NOT Equal Innovation “Every year since 2005, Booz & Company has conducted the Global Innovation 1000 study, which investigates the relationship between how much companies spend on R&D and what their overall financial performance is—and every year, the study reinforces the conclusion that there is no statistically significant relationship between the two.” …
Keeping the End in Mind I recently flipped through an old copy of the book with the understated title, “Successful Large Account Management,” by Miller, Heiman with Tuleja. The opening to the chapter on setting strategic goals is so good and relevant to creating value for customers, I wanted to reprint it here verbatim.
Don’t Sell; Enable Customers to Buy An enormous amount of damage has been done to the profession of sales, and capitalism in general, because business people often believe their objective is to “make a sale.” In most cases, that’s short-sighted and wrong. The very words “sales” and “selling” convey pushing something on someone, often something …
How to Master Your Customers’ Experience Theodore Levitt taught us that “People don’t want to buy a ¼ inch drill; they want to make a ¼ inch hole!” In other words, solutions (drills) are totally separate and distinct from true customer needs (making holes). For example:
Why Customer Satisfaction Surveys Are The Wrong Tool For Innovation While customer satisfaction surveys can yield a lot of useful information to improve current offerings for current customers, they cannot discover your best opportunities for innovation and growth. Here’s why:
There Really is Such a Thing as a “Bad Idea” How many times have you heard someone say “There’s no such thing as a bad idea?” This is a regularly stated before brainstorming sessions. Its intent is noble: to create a safe place for people to verbalize their ideas and to express their creativity. While …
It’s Not a Creativity Problem Innovation enables companies to differentiate, establish competitive advantage, and drive revenue growth. So it isn’t surprising that nearly every executive wants their company to be innovative. When I ask executives how they are driving innovation, I usually hear how they are enhancing their employees’ creativity, such as:
The Customer Information That is Essential Marketers talk a lot about buyer and user “personas.” A persona is an example or archetype of a real person who buys or might buy specific offerings. Personas can significantly improve focus and decision-making because they provide marketing and new product development teams with a concrete focus. However, not …
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