Reinventing Virtual Events

SECTION 3Customer‐Led Everything

A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all.

—Michael LeBoeuf

Market research and product development are bassackwards. It's what Steve Jobs implied—paraphrasing, “customers never know what they always wanted.” Apple released iPhone, and Steve Ballmer at Microsoft was certain users wouldn't want touchscreens as they preferred the physical button keys of Crackberry. Why wouldn't you ask your customers what they want and give it to them? You thought this was a section on “customer‐centricity. His advice is confusing. Customers respond to product teams with the tech they want, but when the companies build for that, it doesn't sell. Look at phablets, glassholes, and self‐driving cars.

Customers understand their pains and needs, but can't consistently articulate the solutions that translate into products. They don't know the outcome they want from your answer, but it's up to you to create a new paradigm to get them there. It's been the same way with our event. If you asked Justin his favorite theme for a drill two years ago, it would have been a “cold‐calling battle.” But now that we've done 100 events on go‐to‐market (GTM) cross‐training, all the ideas are about GTM themes. Why? It's taught him how powerful it is to break out of the sales silo and align with cross‐functional revenue teams like marketing, product, customer success ...