Plant Acorns With A Customer Development Interview

A customer development interview should be treated as a conversation that can enable a future business relationship. Use it to plant acorns .

Plant Acorns With A Customer Development Interview

A customer development interview should be treated as a conversation that may enable a future business relationship. The best outcome for an initial interview is that you can summarize what you have heard about their needs and constraints on possible solutions and they are interested in another conversation or can recommend others to talk to. At the risk of torturing the analogy here are some reasons why I think it’s a good one.

Prepare the Soil: You must prepare for the interview by researching the customer’s industry, challenges, and context. Just as acorns need fertile soil, interviews thrive with groundwork that shows you understand their world. My rule of thumb is to avoid asking any basic questions you can learn from doing your homework. If an hour of research saves a minute early in the conversation, it’s a good investment.

Plant with Care: Ask open-ended, thoughtful questions in a conversation to lay the groundwork for a business relationship.  The conversation should be driven by mutual curiosity: craft your questions to elicit meaningful insights without overwhelming the customer. Wrap it up if they stop asking you questions and don’t appear energized by your curiosity.

Be Encouraging but Patient: Follow up, but look for signs of early follow-on interest. Your goal is a strong business relationship, and like an oak tree, that will take time to develop.

Not Every Seed with Sprout: An interview may not yield immediate results–or even any results. Don’t be misled by what seemed like a positive interview if there is no follow-up on their part. Plant more acorns.

Related blog posts

• “Customer Interviews: Allow Yourself To Be Surprised“
• 40 Tips For B2B Customer Development Interviews (update of Tips for B2B Customer Development Interviews)
• “The Best Way to Get Feedback from Early Customers is a Conversation“
• “The Best Feedback from Your Early Customers is a Story“
• “Use a Wiki To Organize Customer Interviews“
• Customer Interviews: Spend an Hour to Save a Minute

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