Thoughts, ideas, and lessons learned from real-world customer engagements and interactions...
Getting clear on your target!
9 Feb 2010 | No Comments | posted by admin | in Customer Development, Marketing
Last week I had the opportunity to once again present the “Accelerating To First Customers” session at the Lead To Win program. As always, this fantastic program had some of the greatest new companies in Ottawa participating.
One of the key things that I cover in this session is how to get crystal clear on the true target market for your product or service. This is one of the core fundamentals of any business no matter their size, maturity, etc. It does not matter if you are a start-up who is going through the Customer Development and Lean Startup processes or if you are an existing company that has some great sales results already on the scoreboard. If you do not get this step right, then the list of potential problems ranging from spending precious marketing dollars on marketing to the wrong audience all the way through to even developing a solution that is not truly needed by the market can present itself. The ripple effect of this core mistake can be felt right across the whole company and the problems will present itself in many different forms.
I have done previous posts on this topic so I will not repeat any of these. However, there are two sources of additional information that I have come across and I wanted to share regarding this topic. First, if you are a follower of the Lean Startup and Customer Development methodologies then you may have heard of Giff Constable who is the CEO of a new upcoming start-up company called Aprizi. If you are not familiar with him then be sure to check out his blog. He just did a recent post entitled Targeting Matters! which I think is worth the read.
Our own guidelines for using email and surveys in the Customer Development process
16 Jan 2010 | No Comments | posted by admin | in Customer Development
Recently, I have noticed more blog posts and discussions within the Lean Startup Circle and other areas regarding the use of email and surveys as part of the Customer Development process. Email and surveys are fantastic tools, and can add a great deal of value, however in our business we have learned that they are not the ONLY tools to be used in order to gather the vital customer information for our clients.
Email has become a day to day tool used by just about everyone today. Email is one of those revolutionary tools that has helped all of us to communicate in near real-time (with mobile devices) and to open up the lines of communication with companies and individuals from all parts of the world. As email will never replace the power and benefits of a one on one interaction, our team has put in place some guidelines for ourselves on the use of email within our implementation of the customer development process…..
The movement is underway!
6 Jan 2010 | No Comments | posted by admin | in Customer Development
First off, let me begin by wishing everyone a fantastic and prosperous 2010. Personally, I think that although there may be some more challenges in the economy and business that we will all face this year, I am extremely optimistic about not only our business but many of our customers businesses for this upcoming year.
One of the things that is making me extremely excited about this new year is the movement which I have been watching and participating in as it relates to the true understanding of the importance of customers and the vital role that they need to play within all aspects of a successful companies business processes.
I want to step back for a second and set the stage regarding this topic. First off, in the first part of last year I completed publishing of my book – “Building Sales Momentum Through Client Focused Development”. Although I had done quite a bit of research as part of the building of this book, in approximately May I stumbled upon a video of Eric Ries talking about his experience at IMVU, and what he was calling the Lean Startup Methodology. After watching the video, I did some more research and came across Steve Blank who not only was doing some joint presentations in Silicon Valley with Eric, but is also a professor for the Entrepreneurship program at UC Berkley. Steve Blank had published a book entitled “The Four Steps To The Epiphany”.
