ROI Selling Blog

If you’re trying to find new opportunities in a market, it doesn't necessarily mean you have to expand your product line. First, expand your perspective. Why do I say this? To paraphrase Harvard marketing professor Theodore Levitt, people don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill bit. They want a quarter-inch hole. In other words, look at the market from the perspective of the problem that you solve.

When customers ask for new products or features, should you jump to fill the request? These situations can help you deepen your relationship with your customer. On the other hand, you could also end up wasting time and resources creating a new offering that they're not willing to pay more for and that no other customer needs.

When you make the decision to target market segments strategically, you can create significant profitable growth opportunities for your business. But what happens when the sales team fails to embrace those new segments? It’s not that salespeople want to sabotage the efforts of marketers. But resisting change is part of human nature. When salespeople have spent months and years developing relationships with established customers, it can be difficult to make the switch to selling to a whole new set of customers.

Recently I read a MarketingProfs blog post reporting that business decision-makers are 10% more likely to consider B2B brands that consumers know and feel connected to. The report, which was based on data from a survey of 9,500 global consumers and 450 business decision-makers, included some interesting charts and categorized companies in four ways. Known, but not relevant Highly relevant Limited relevance Not relevant