More Related Content
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
Featured
Featured (20)
What Thinking Customers and Markets Looks Like
- 1. Think customers and markets. Products are secondary. 6
- 2. What does “thinking customers and markets” look like?
- 4. Potential Enhanced Expected Core 6 Knowing what our products are. Hint: Our products aren’t our products. Fogging the mirror In line with “the norm” Better than “the norm” What no one else does or is even capable of doing
- 5. 6 Making a point of finding out what the customer really needs.
- 8. 6 Remembering that we’re all in marketing.
Editor's Notes
- This is one of the toughest ones to talk about, since on the surface it would seem only to apply to people in the Sales & Marketing organization. When I first presented this a couple of years ago, I felt that way as well. But it’s really not true at all, when you really think about it.
- The expression “Think Outside the Box” is the business slogan equivalent of “Stairway to Heaven.” Good, but overexposed to the point that no one really listens to it anymore. Our own box is quite literally a box, and it’s our building. It’s crucial for us to understand that, tempted as we may be to think that our business happens within these four walls, it really doesn’t. It happens “out there.” The sooner we realize this, the better off we are. What we do “in here” is dictated by what’s happening “out there.”
- So what are our products? What are we selling, really? We’ll be talking about this a lot as an organization over the coming months, and I’ll be talking about this at length at the next company meeting.
- Really, really understanding what our customers need. While really, really understanding that sometimes they don’t know themselves.
- And because they aren’t always sure what they want, it’s important to stay ahead of them. “Skating to where the puck is going to be, not where it’s been.” –Wayne Gretzky Innovating in terms of what services we offer, and how we offer them. Innovating in how we do things every day. Always looking for a better way, no matter what it is we’re doing.
- Everything that every single one of us does here can create good “word of mouth.”