One of the best CEOs
I’ve ever worked for
(the CEO of a major beverage company)
would visit the customer
(grocery stores, restaurants, etc)
at least once A DAY.
He’d constantly ask people
what they were buying
and why they were buying it.
We knew
when we pitched a new product to him,
he’d look at it
from not only a CEO view
but from a customer view also.
As Jim Koch,
Founder of Boston Beer Co.,
shares
“As a business grows,
the people at the top are often cut off
from the market,
the customers,
and what’s really happening.
I still do a lot of street selling
and spending a lot of time
in front of customers,
whether it’s trying to get a draft line
or a better place on the shelf.
It teaches me the real challenges.
We don’t do a lot of market research
or focus groups,
but I see real customers
and to me that’s a lot higher quality information.”
See and talk to customers.