Anticipating what Your Customers
Need Before They Do
How to Spot Trends
Spotting trends early on can be a way to identify that next big product line or stay ahead of competitors. It can also help you make changes to evolve with the changing times and anticipate your customers’ changing needs before they do.
People frequently ask me, “Anita, how do I go about spotting trends affecting my business?” Today I am going to give you some of my inside secrets.
You may be surprised to hear my secrets. Most of the techniques I use are available to anyone – and many of them are free or low cost. They are deceptively simple. It’s making sure you follow them regularly and consistently that counts.
- Subscribe to magazines and newspapers. I subscribe to over two dozen magazines and newspapers, including: Wired; Business 2.0; Inc magazine; InformationWeek; Forbes. I also read selected trade magazines. I choose publications because each one has something they are particularly good at covering. Some are good at technology; some are good at business; some at the economy; some at understanding the nuances of particular industries from the inside out. I also read the Wall Street Journal – the front page, middle column article is usually spot on for pointing out emerging trends.
Read publications on a broad range of topics – not just your industry. Remember, you are trying to spot what is happening in the world around you. Get out of your comfort zone!
But you say, “Anita, I’m running a business. I don’t have time to read over 2 dozen magazines.” Let me share a little secret: they repealed the law that says you have to read a magazine cover to cover. The table of contents is my favorite page in any magazine.
There is an art to reading publications for the purpose of spotting trends. (i) Get in the habit of quickly skimming the table of contents or the section front pages, for a few items of interest. (ii) Read just those items. (iii) Clip out anything important enough to save. (iv) Circulate the article to staff of colleagues if you consider it especially important (you also want others in your organization to be aware of key trends). (v) Pitch out the publications so that they don’t stack up.
- Use news alerts and RSS Web feeds. Today we have access to more information online than ever. So how do you keep yourself from being overwhelmed by it all? The new crop of specialty search engines, feedreader tools and automated email alerts are key tools to managing information overload. Some of my favorites: del.icio.us; Google Reader; Bloglines; Technorati; Google news alerts and blog alerts.
These tools help you organize and keep track of new developments affecting an industry, competitors, or customers. Each tool works a little differently, but some of them even alert you whenever new content is published on the Web that coincides with certain keywords, containing specific company names, or coming from certain publications.
If you don’t know what RSS is or don’t recognize these tools I just mentioned, you are not alone. This is a rapidly emerging area. I urge you to learn about these tools because I guarantee your competitors are probably using them, and in the future more people will be. Read more about RSS Web feeds at FeedBurner.
- Talk with customers and other business owners. This may sound basic, but ask yourself whether you are satisfied with the communication occurring with your customers. Do you get feedback regularly from your customers? Or perhaps a better question is, does feedback from customers ever get beyond the sales or customer support departments, to you and other stakeholders in your organization?
In one organization where I worked, we had a bi-weekly executive team meeting. In the meeting we reviewed reports from customer service containing summaries of conversations with customers on particularly important or recurring issues. We also reviewed reports showing the reasons customers chose not to renew their contracts. Not only is this good marketing research and customer service oversight, but by reviewing reports like this you begin to see common themes and trends. Customers are telling you what they want and sometimes how their worlds are changing, by their complaints and nonrenewal behaviors.
Of course, direct communication with customers before problems arise is important. Calling customers on the phone before a problem arises, making sales visits or listening in to telephone sales calls – all are important to understand the customer’s world. Ask your customers what trends they see, and how those trends are affecting their businesses. They will be happy you asked, and sure to tell you quite a bit.
- Start writing down trends as you spot them. The act of writing down thoughts helps you remember trends better and crystallizes your thoughts clearly. It gives you something to look back on and review – and of course by looking back you spot the significance of points that may have been very faint when you first picked up on them. But by looking back and reviewing them in written form, you start to see patterns emerge.
Sir Richard Branson, the billionaire founder of Virgin Airlines, attributes a large portion of his success to the fact that he takes copious notes, and then reviews his notes regularly.
You don’t need to write War and Peace. If you like to write, start a blog and keep your notes there. If you are a person of few words, some hand-written bullet points on a piece of notepaper tacked to a bulletin board works, too. Just write something to keep track of important points. And then refer back to them regularly!
These are just four of many trendspotting techniques I use in my work. Probably the best advice I can give you is to dig in and try some of these techniques. It will force you to pay conscious attention to trends.
After you get attuned to staying on top of trends, you will develop your own techniques and tweaks. You will start spotting trends earlier and earlier, when they are just starting to emerge. I guarantee that staying on top of trends will help keep your business more competitive. You can even start to anticipate customer needs before your customers even realize their own needs.
About: Anita Campbell is the Editor of Small Business Trends,
a site that tracks and analyzes trends affecting the small business market. -- April 2007
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Anita Campbell
Editor
Small Business Trends
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