Since 2009, the truth present Shark Tank has been a constant crowd-pleaser. In 2022, media scores and analytics large Nielsen estimated Season 14’s common viewership at 4.2 million folks per episode. The Shark Tank hook is straightforward: Establish a novel and normally as-yet-unmet want within the market, create and produce a product that satisfies that want, after which hopefully money in on it for large bucks. Whether or not that product is a Scrub Daddy, a smiley-face dish scrubber, Bombas, a philanthropic model of socks and underwear, or the Ionic Ear, a surgically implanted Bluetooth headset (the Sharks didn’t chew on that one), groundbreaking CEO Jack Truong sees this “determine demand and provide the necessity” technique as a really sound enterprise observe.
With a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and 11 progressive patents to his credit score, Jack Truong has a powerful historical past of researching untapped market niches and subsequently creating the requisite items and providers to meet them — all to the tune of main earnings. Whereas at 3M, he reimagined the faltering pale-yellow Submit-it be aware into the rainbow-hued, multiuse megabrand it’s at the moment and was additionally instrumental within the growth of the corporate’s Scotch-Brite microfiber fabric, which has since grow to be synonymous with scratch-free cleansing worldwide.
“I used to be uncovered to varied divisions in my first two years at 3M, and I actually needed to be taught and perceive what the unmet wants have been in these industries, and provide you with innovations that ship progressive options for these specific sectors,” Truong advised Building Information.
Why Corporations Should Pivot To Meet Evolving Shopper Wants
As occasions change, there are inevitably going to be items and providers that fall by the wayside. Nevertheless, any such attrition solely accounts for a small proportion of failed enterprise endeavors. Sadly, the company panorama is suffering from downed gamers who fell flat as the results of nothing a lot as missed alternative.
“As know-how advances and shopper demand evolves, corporations and merchandise rapidly could be left behind,” Truong cautioned. “Too many organizations are centered on creating, launching, and loading new applied sciences and options to present merchandise whereas ignoring the opportunity of new options that truly make life simple for shoppers.”
When Truong took the helm as president and CEO of Electrolux, the venerable equipment model was poised on simply such a slippery slope. On the time, the corporate’s administration had accepted declining gross sales figures as, if not inevitable, not less than extremely probably. However the place they noticed stagnant enlargement prospects, Jack Truong noticed promise.
“Again in 2011, once I joined, [Electrolux] was a few $4.2 billion enterprise,” he advised CEO Journal. “The corporate noticed North America as a mature market and didn’t anticipate any progress. In actual fact, once I took over, the corporate wasn’t rising and revenue was declining.”
Throughout his first assembly with the corporate’s world management, Truong made his case: “There’s no such factor as a mature market, there’s solely mature enterprise managers,” he asserted. “After all they have been shocked … however North America is a really giant market and it ought to be rising.”
After sussing out the competitors’s strengths and weaknesses, Truong centered on market suggestions to discover a worthwhile resolution. Realizing Electrolux couldn’t go toe-to-toe in technological whiz-bangery, Truong acknowledged its merchandise had their very own set of strengths — ease of use, sturdiness, and superior aesthetic design — making them objects that buyers weren’t solely hungry to personal, however keen to pay substantial cash to get. By repositioning the model to leverage these elements, Truong saved Electrolux from potential extinction, and likewise turned it right into a model to be reckoned with, rising from third place within the North American market to second, and seeing the corporate’s valuation double.
How Listening to Shopper Wants Unlocks the Doorways to Progress
Admittedly, there are typically unassailable forces at play — the introduction of synthetic intelligence, for instance — that result in the obsolescence of sure industries whose revenue fashions are depending on outmoded know-how. Nevertheless, as shopper preferences morph to satisfy the altering market, Jack Truong asserts savvy leaders should constantly tune in to buyer suggestions in the event that they hope to succeed.
Stakeholders have to determine not solely which issues their prospects like and which they hate, but additionally pinpoint the products or providers for which there’s a urgent shopper want they’re both unable to search out or can’t fairly afford. “Creativity prices cash and innovation drives worth,” Truong defined. “Hear rigorously to what shoppers don’t say, and observe intently what they do. Solely then do your improvements have the potential to vary shopper conduct and create true worth and demand.”
Truong warns speeding a product to market with out carefully doing all your homework first can have disastrous outcomes. When you’re searching for a main instance of a extremely anticipated product that was neither budget-friendly nor glad shoppers’ precise want listing, Jack Truong says you want look no additional than Google Glass.
With an ill-conceived, overly fussy design, to not point out a hefty price ticket, Google Glass’s less-than-stellar reception rapidly rendered it an Edsel within the Tesla world of high-tech gadgetry. As Truong wrote in a Sept. 11, 2023 characteristic for Entrepreneur, “Google failed to grasp the true unmet wants of its shoppers when the corporate first launched its ‘moonshot’ Google Glass in 2014. Regardless of the ‘sensible’ glasses’ cutting-edge know-how, the product was discontinued after only one 12 months. Regardless of its reside map imaging and hands-free net navigation, Google botched its evaluation of the product’s marketability — choosing a ‘clunky’ form, overcomplicated options, and an overwrought price ticket ($1,500).”
A Remaining Lesson from the Sharks
It’s a broadly accepted perception that sharks should maintain in steady ahead movement to outlive, and it’s a technique that some misguided leaders cling to, even when it really works in opposition to their greatest pursuits. The reality is, the outdated shark adage is extra fable than aphorism. Though some species do acquire oxygen by water passing over their gills, sharks that depend on the interior pharynx to breathe can stay at relaxation and never asphyxiate. Transferring ahead with out first navigating a profitable course has sunk a couple of enterprise.
Differentiating between a really important unfulfilled shopper need and falling prey to the “one thing shiny” syndrome could be tough. In Shark Tank phrases, it’s the distinction between the multimillion-dollar promoting Scrub Daddy, a product that actually delivered on an unmet shopper want, and the ill-fated Wake N’ Bacon, a pig-shaped alarm clock designed to evoke sleepers from dreamland by bombarding them with the aroma of America’s beloved cured pork product. (As a lot because it’s onerous to argue with the attraction of bacon, it turned out this invention was each a hearth hazard and a meals security threat.)
As elemental as listening to shoppers could also be, Jack Truong factors out it’s solely step one in an extended course of. After gathering the pertinent suggestions information, it have to be totally analyzed and put into the context of reasonable deliverables. Solely then can progressive methods aimed toward diminishing shopper ache factors and delivering pleasure metrics be set into movement, permitting firms to leverage acceptable sources to create novel options that maintain the client glad and increase firm gross sales figures accordingly.
