Understand What Motivates People

"You have to find out how to press the "hot buttons" that turn consumers on, and this reality means gaining an understanding of what motivates them in real-life situations."² To turn people on, you must, first, find out what they really want, and then, show them how to get it.

Understand the Dynamics of Customer Needs

Understanding customer needs will help you define new market opportunities and drive innovation and revenue growth in every aspect of your organization.

In the new rapidly changing economy, however, customer predictability is dead. "Whatever a customer wants today may not be what he or she wants tomorrow. Or he or she may want more of it. If you're offering low prices, customers want those prices slashed further. If you're offering state-of-the art products, they want them newer still. In meeting ever-increasing customer demands for lower, faster, better, and newer, companies are driving themselves and their competitors to the brink."⁴

You can't predict the future, but by establishing effective change management practices you can be ready for whatever it brings.

Do Continuous Customer Research

If you want to develop a new product or service, exploratory market and customer research should be an essential and continuous component of the process. It provides the foundation and platform for effective idea generation and creativity management. "It describes customer or consumer needs, wants, gripes, complaints, and problems that each have about the performance of a certain activity, function, process, life event, or product. This research, prior to idea generation, provides the basis for setting up a problem-solving mindset towards idea generation."³

To explore customer needs and wants, examine external market and competitive trends, ascertain potential needs and wants of each customer segment and character type, identify problems that customer cite, observe people to discover their unrealized needs.

Competitive Strategies

• Customer Value Proposition

  • Survival Strategy: Low cost/benefit ratio

  • Market Leadership Strategy: creating higher customer value and positioning... More

Selling By Coaching

Treat your prospective customer as a player who wants to achieve extraordinary results. You are to help the player win. Listen to words, body language and emotions to understand the player's both conscious and unconscious needs.... More

Psychographic Classification of Customers...

More Value-Added (MVA)...

How Do You Create Value for the Customer?...

Value Innovation: Two Fundamental Questions...

The Best Technique to Win the Customer Over...

Differentiating with Different Types of Customers...

Credibility Marketing...

Customer Intimacy...

Customer Retention...

Turn Your Customers Into Teachers...

 Case in Point  Black & Decker (B&D)...

 Case in Point  Ford Motor Company...

 Case in Point  Dell Computer Corporation...