If you want great market insight, you only need to ask

While the large companies constantly seek market insight so they can report accurately to investors several times a year, some smaller companies can go for quite some time without keeping a close eye on their markets. 

The revenue results of many of the big tech companies including Apple and Amazon show what can happen when the market changes. Yes, it happens to even the biggest and the best. Think how many university students studying business and marketing must have used these big tech companies as the basis for their thesis. This post is not a criticism of big tech companies or suggesting that we have been foolish to admire them and learn from their methods. Nor is it a criticism of any specific company or person. This post is about making a simple point and that is that we should always be getting market insight.

When I talk about the importance of markets with leaders, I sometimes get a cool response. The reason for this is that the focus is always on today and the short term. The mind is on the next set of results due this week, this month, this quarter. That is their focus. Markets are distant abstract topics. They are some distance away. You can’t influence them. “The markets will do what the markets will do” is one phrase I remember. Another one is, “I just want to see people talk about their sales figures. I want people to look me in the eyes and tell me how they are going to hit target.”

As leaders, when we say or think things like that, we are not only just thinking short term, but we are also at the far end of being passive. We are effectively saying that there is nothing we can do to control the markets, therefore let us not waste time thinking about them. We are also putting all of the ownership of the problem onto others.

The problem with this mindset is that it is both untrue and dangerous. As companies, we can change the markets by launching new products and services that are successful. Even if we can’t change the markets, we can anticipate some of the likely changes and either take action in advance or be more prepared to take action when it is required.

An interesting thing about market insight is where I just introduce it as a small element within a workshop on a larger sales or marketing related theme. Suddenly, the very people who it was assumed would have little to offer have plenty to contribute. These people often are closest to the customer. They know things and they are in the right circumstances prepared to share that information. At this point, the discussion can go one of two ways. We can have a highly insightful and productive discussion, or we can have nothing. Yes, absolutely nothing.

So, we can have either a great discussion or no discussion and the funny thing is that the very same people are capable of either delivering great insight or no insight. How can that be?

The answer is very simple. It is not a people issue, but a leadership issue. If people feel that they can talk openly and that their observations and comments will be valued and considered, then they will be more inclined to provide feedback. However, if they feel that their comments will be taken as simply an excuse for a lack of performance or seen as being disrespectful of the management team’s strategies, then they will probably have little or nothing to say.

So, there you have the choice. Let’s label them:

• Company A: Absolute fear, therefore no useful communication and therefore no feedback.
• Company B: Open communication without fear to get great insight.

That’s not to say that with the first option (Company A), everyone will sit in silence. The day will pass with some good humour, there will be some breathless, upbeat presentations along the line of, “despite the challenges, I WILL hit target…” Then everyone will drive home, spend another month working hard, and all the while “Company A is getting ever nearer to the abyss.

While Company A drifts, Company B is driving forward with a range of initiatives. Seeds have begun to sprout following the valued feedback session. Where the people at Company A are “just keeping their heads down,” at Company B they are collaborating with other like-minded enthusiastic people. There is purpose. There are new goals. Processes are being improved. Functional capabilities are being built and people are learning the new skills that they will need. There is belief, excitement and confidence.

Why? Because unlike with Company A, at Company B, there is a future.

The future is what we make it and the future starts with great insight. If you want the insight, you only have to ask. Just make sure first that you have created the right ecosystem for valued open communication without fear.

Adrian Hargreaves is a sales and marketing consultant and owner of Hargreaves Marketing Ltd, based in Blackburn, Lancashire. Hargreaves Marketing offer a market insight service called “Talk Markets.”