The Boy Scout motto is “Be prepared,” yet scouts pride themselves on carrying the bare minimum for a safe backpacking trip, and having multiple uses for each object they carry. In every business, [...]

If you’re in a business-to-business market, how well do you understand your customers’ needs?  How would you say those needs have evolved in the last twelve months? If you’re only using market [...]

I recently met with the leaders of a highly successful company. Sales growth, which had been strong for years, was headed into negative territory. They were desperate to find the next “big idea” [...]

Years ago, my father had a heart attack. Worried that our big, protective dog wouldn’t let the ambulance team into the house, he lay in bed and waited for my mom to return from running errands, [...]

When I first tried kite boarding in January, I wasn’t a particularly fast learner. My enthusiasm and persistence, however, were off the charts. Wild crashes and being dragged through the water, [...]

Not long ago, I stood on a pier near Cape Canaveral, Florida and watched a SpaceX rocket launch. People were wearing SpaceX t-shirts and talking excitedly. SpaceX has brought the thrill back into [...]

When you want to gain insight into emerging customer needs and behaviors, the first solution you might think of is market research. But research can be costly, and it can take weeks to implement [...]

Every industry undergoes change. The players who devise a different and better way of capitalizing on these changes are the ones that emerge as winners. Few arenas have experienced more change in [...]

What’s the best way to use customer data to enhance your company’s agility? Many companies are pursuing sophisticated data analytics to quantify customer opinions, tailor offers, optimize [...]

Are you making money the same way now as you were five years ago? Have some of your prior revenue sources disappeared? Have you created new revenue sources—new products, services, customers or [...]