“I know I need to be listening to the market to make my product decisions but my company doesn’t seem interested in market research. How can I justify spending big bucks for information they don’t seem to value?”

Assuming that we want market information—and I’m convinced that most companies do—we have to explore the options for market research. Traditional B2C companies do market research all the time but B2B technology companies don’t. The chief reason B2B avoids research is that it’s perceived to be both time-consuming and expensive, but it doesn’t have to be.

My friend Bob Martin uses the concept of Listening Posts to reveal the many research tools between gut instinct (low cost and fast) and comprehensive market research studies (high cost and slow). Many of these “listening posts” are already available; we just have to analyze the information they’re telling us.

In the short run, the listening posts you can tap are right inside your company: Sales, SE’s, executives, technical and customer support—anyone having customer contact. An extremely valuable listening post is on-going feedback from visionary customers; those who are perceived thought leaders. Imagine an inner-circle of customers and prospects that you can reach when you need some quick feedback on an idea. If you haven’t established these relationships, start building them now. The collective intelligence of all these touch-points must be collected, analyzed and acted upon.

And the answers we get are powerful and direct: instant product feedback, competitor feedback, business issues our customers need to have addressed—literally a cornucopia of intelligence which gives you a competitive advantage. More than anything, listening posts are relatively inexpensive means to quickly gather information —which will help you make better business decisions.

Visit www.marketlisteningposts.com to learn more about listening posts. Contact Bob Martin at rsm@ifrconsulting.com for more information or for assistance with setting up listening posts in your company.