calling all cash cows
B2B Customers Want Specific Things and Have Special Needs. Your competitors may be workingh hard to provide these. This Makes the Cash Cow Products More Fragile Than We Think.
Making a comprehensive list of all the business customer needs is challenging, but here are 40 to get you started. They are organized in this order: inspirational, individual, ease of doing business, Functional and tablestakes. An important thing to remember when selling to businesses - It’s really people buying from people…Many buyers act a bit like consumers during a B2B deal.
Inspirational Value and Purpose
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Vision
Do your products and services follow a vision that synchs with the business customer?
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Hope
Are your products and services inspirational and offer hope for future accomplishments?
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Social Responsibility
Do you follow policies that self-regulate against concerns for social issues like environmental, digital consumption, health, addiction, etc?
Individual Value (Career and personal)
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career - Network Expansion
Does buying your products and services offer long term opportunities to connect with others and build lifting relationships?
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career - Marketability
Do buying your products allow purchasers and users to increase their hard performance skills and marketability?
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career - Reputational Assurance
When dealing with your company, do purchasers and users enjoy a reputational lift?
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personal - Design and Aesthetics
Do consumers feel as though they have obtained a panache lift from owning your stuff?
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personal - Growth and Development
Similar to marketability, does buying your products and services help others improve their soft skill development?
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personal - Reduced Anxiety
Is it important for users and owners of your products to feel less anxiety?
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personal - Fun and Perks
Business to business sales are really often people buying from people. Do customers of yours enjoy some fun and more interesting experiences?
Value Elements That Make You Easy to Do Business With
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Productivity - Time Savings
Many products and services put emphasis on saving time for business customers. Do yours?
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Productivity - Reduced Effort
Some products and services targeted to business customers help reduce effort – allowing more time spent on important tasks. Do yours?
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Productivity - Decreased Hassles
Are your customers feeling worried about future hassles?
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Productivity - Information
Products, Services value drivers are important. And, information sharing from your sales approaches are a big value element – improving the customer experience.
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Productivity - Transparency
Are your products and services authentic and do what you say they will do? Are transactional elements of your sales transparent? No hidden gotchas?
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Access - Availability
How hard is it to get your products and services when a customer needs them?
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Access - Variety
Do you make customers buy more than they need? Do they have just the right selections?
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Access - Configurability
Business customers are scrapy. Can your products be configured in the field to be used in creative ways? Does the configurability teach your organization?
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Relationship - Responsiveness
Business customers are demanding to require quick response times from sales, technical experts and after sales service teams. How is your organization on this?
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Relationship - Expertise
Does your customer facing team (sales, tech support, aftercare) bring expertise that is helpful to sustain a business relationship with your customers?
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Relationship - Commitment
Are you committed to the long-term applications of your products. Does your support team and repair/parts availability help reduce obsolescence?
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Relationship - Stability
Does your organization contribute to stability for your business customers with their scheduling, pricing, and distribution promises?
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Relationship - Cultural Fit
How well does your organization fit within the cultural norms and values set by your business customer?
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Strategic - Risk Reduction
Do your products and services reduce strategic plan risk for the business customer?
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Strategic - Reach
Do you contribute to extended reach of new customers and markets for your business customer?
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Strategic - Flexibility
Do your products, services and sales approaches improve the business customers strategic capabilities and flexibility to serve their customers?
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Strategic - Component Quality
Do the pieces and parts you provide contribute to the overall quality of the business customers products or services?
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Operational - Organization
How well do your products and services help the customer to feel organized and sorted?
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Operational - Simplification
Do your products, services and sales approaches simplify things for the customer?
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Operational - Connection
Do your products connect well in a “plug-in” type of way? Do customers have to buy extra stuff to connect your products?
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Operational - Integration
How well do your products work with other products? Do you use open architecture standards for technology?
Functional Value - Both Economic and Performance
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Economic - Improved top Line
Do your products and services contribute to revenue growth for your business customer? Indirect or Direct?
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Economic - Cost reduction
What is the cost to maintain and repair, cost to operate your products? What is the total cost of ownership over time?
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Performance - Product Quality
Includes performance, features, reliability, conformance, durability, serviceability, aesthetics, and perceived quality.
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Performance - Scalability
Can your products or services be scaled for larger quantity, higher performance and extended outputs?
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Performance - Innovation
Do products and services from your organization contribute to innovation improvements for your customer or their customers?
Tablestakes
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Tablestakes - Meeting Specifications
How accurately do your product specifications match with the business customers needs and requests for purchase?
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Tablestakes - Acceptable Price
While consumers are always looking for value, they are often willing to pay more for this. Business customers are sometimes required to purchase with low price requirements. How well does your company compete on price?
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Tablestakes - Regulatory Compliance
Are your products and services ‘ready now’ to meet current regulatory policies? Are they future proofed to meet future anticipated regulatory rules?
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Tablestakes - Ethical Standards
Does your organization follow a code of conduct to exceed expectations for honesty, fairness, respect and responsibility?