WD-40, the famed degreasing and rust-preventing agent, is widely known for its versatility.  As the story goes, it was originally designed and sold in the aerospace industry to aid in airplane maintenance. But through the years, thousands of new applications for it were found and problems solved.  Everything from lubricating door-hinges to de-squeaking bedsprings to freeing tongues stuck to frozen metal in wintertime. 

The value of a can of WD-40 has undoubtedly increased in the mind of customers as its perceived utility increased.

And the thing is…most companies can discover unintended uses for their products if they let their customers guide them.  One example that we’ve found of a company recognizing new value drivers for its products based on customer use is Dow Chemical. 

Like many B2B companies, Dow has a broad array of products and services and interacts with their customers in many different ways.  But, through surveys and conversations with their sales reps, they’ve found that there are often pockets of customers within every customers segment that tend to value a particular part of Dow’s offer far more than other customers in the same segment.

So why does this happen?  And what opportunity does it present?   Read More »

Common wisdom in (American) football is that “defense wins championships.”  However, focusing on a defensive – and here I mean reactive – strategy with customers is a losing game plan.  With top-level pressure to grow our business in 2010, we can no longer maintain a “what can we do for you today?” approach.

Why?  The answer lies with our customers, who are expecting (and responding to) a more proactive interaction with sales people.  In fact, SEC research has found that customers value a sales interaction that “reframes” the way they are thinking about a problem, or introduces them to a new challenge that they hadn’t considered. 

What this shows us is that we need to call a few offensive plays with our customers.  So, what are the right plays to call?

1. Shift resources away from bad to good customers – even before approaching customers, you need to have a solid understanding of which customers you should be focusing on.  These are the customers who will actually pay you back for your investments.  The problem is doing that without putting your current revenue at risk.

SEC Members, see how Square D segmented their customers beyond typical volume/revenue metrics, and how TNT developed a “downtiering” process to gradually pull resources away from customers that no longer merit the investment.  Read More »