Don't trust your sales people

Posted by: John Landerholm in value development, product development, outcome-driven innovation, design on Mar 11, 2009

Don't trust your sales people for relaying proper user input in product development. Why would I say something like that? Anyone old enough to remember the 70's? Burnt Red and Avocado Green were reported to be the colors that the market were demanding for kitchen appliances.  Usually it was a someone from sales who was voicing this wisdom.

I'll let you in on a secret. The depth of a salespersons insight into what "the market" is demanding is to repeat the product features that the last customer he talked with was interested in.

That's not entirely true, a salesperson will also voice a desire for ANY feature that a competitor has had success with in the past. And by success I mean any customer or potential customer that voices a positive remark about a competitors product feature is considered a successful feature. And this opinion might have been voiced to the salesperson just to refute a sales argument or ultimately to be left in peace. So if the competition is successful in thwarting a potential sale by any unique product feature, no matter how silly, the salesperson demands that feature as well.

Salespeople talk to potential customers all day. They are often seen as the bridge between product development and the market. They have their fingers on the pulse of buyers. Nothing could be more wrong. Let me elaborate.

There are two types of customers: potential customers and existing customers (including potential customers who are in the sales cycle). Considering the fact that there are 6 billion individuals in the first category, which of the two categories would your new product development have the most impact?  And which category are your sales people in contact with day in and day out?

When starting any new product development it is necessary to have good user input. Discovering unmet market needs is the most critical aspect of this process. Just don't trust your sales people to supply these types of input. There are several reasons for this.

1. They are talking to the wrong people.Salespeople talk with either existing customers or to potential customers already in the sales loop. While this is great for finding problems in the rear view mirror and for incremental improvements, it isn't very useful for finding unresolved problems that can translate into breakthrough products.
2. They are talking with the wrong people about the wrong things.Sales people are great at one on one interviews and at creating empathy with that one person. This approach seldom results in user input that is measurable, verifiable and actionable. A salesperson reacts to the voicing of an unmet need by trying to convince the customer to look at the situation differently. This is just the opposite of what we are looking for. We charish the unmet needs. They fuel the fires of innovation!
3. They are talking to the wrong people about the wrong things in the wrong way. Customer needs, requirements, solutions, specifications and benefits are  expressed in ways that are difficult to quantify and are therefor almost always vague. Faster, cheaper, smaller, better are all words that translate poorly into prioritizing features and functions and ultimately into product development activities.