For Those Of Us Who Ask: "What Do You Think Of This Idea?"

[Alana]

Thanksgiving has ended (well, many of us are still in a food comatose). Many of us probably spent the special turkey day with loved ones. Being the entrepreneurs that we are, many of us also saw the many people around the table not just as our dearest friends and family, but as a captive audience of potential customers/clients. This of course led us to ask (maybe after a few glasses of the bubbly): “Hey, I have this idea. Whatta you think of this……?†and I’m guessing that the response(s) went something like this “Yeah…sure…that could work. Hey, do you mind passing over the cranberry sauce?â€

Before you start envisioning yourself on the next cover of Inc., consider what an article* by Chistopher Hann in the magazine Entrepreneur (Trends 2013) wrote (and I’m paraphrasing):

There is a huge gap between “what companies think their customers want vs. what those customers really want….You could fit a canyon into the space between perception and reality.†According to the article, when companies are asked what services they felt their customers cherished most, 90 percent of those companies weren’t even close to getting it right (based on the double blind surveys where customers don’t know who’s asking the questions, and companies don’t know who’s providing the answers).
The last three paragraphs of the article read as follows:
“So what’s a hapless entrepreneur to do? First, stop considering those customer-satisfaction surveys as gospel. They might tell you how your company is doing, but they don’t tell you the value of what your company is doing. ‘What does the preponderance of your customer base value most? Lead with that in your marketing and sales,’ Smith (co-author of Relevant Selling and CEO of Smart Advantage) says.
It’s also important to note that what customers want often differs from what prospective customers want. ‘If somebody has never had any experience with you, and you’re trying to convince them to be your customer, they need a different sales pitch’, she says.
Further, customer needs invariably change, so it’s critical for entrepreneurs to conduct regular surveys. Because when you’re trying to figure out what a customer wants, turns out the customer is always right.â€

*I tried to find the article online without any luck. It’s a one page article and it’s worth reading the whole thing (pg 28). You can practically stand at the magazine rack and just read it if you want to be cheap about it….


Here’s what I took from this article (and from what I’ve learned from this forum since joining last week): First, MJ has A LOT of patience. Second, if you have to try to convince the forum that you’re right/genius and that the forum just needs to see it your way, then that ight there needs to be the major red flag that says, “STOP. NO…seriously….stop.†Reevaluate—reconsider--reinvent.

 

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