Keep talking to your customers

So you have a brilliant new idea for a product or service that could be a real winner for your existing business or perhaps a brand new business, but you need to test it out before progressing full steam ahead towards launch. You can do all the preliminary desk research you like but there is no substitute for actually getting out into the market and talking directly to your potential customers. You will learn more from sitting down and talking face to face with your potential consumer base than you will from the piles of market research and competitor monitoring reports you are probably wading through. If you get up close and personal with your potential customers, they are much more likely to be honest and direct about your idea because you are asking for feedback and insight, rather than trying to sell to them. Surveys, email questionnaires, or analytics can all be useful in the bigger scheme of things when it comes to feedback gathering but they miss out on all sorts of contextual information. Your customers might say they have a particular pain point that needs a solution, but you won’t know which one are they really passionate about or which one truly keeps them up at night until you hear them speaking directly. It’s all about digging deeper and getting to know your customers, getting that all essential feedback. As Microsoft Founder Bill Gates says: “We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve.” Bottom line - keep talking to your customers!