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 individuals per episode. The Shark Tank hook is straightforward: Establish a singular 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 giant 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 “establish demand and provide the necessity” technique as a really sound enterprise apply.
With a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and 11 revolutionary patents to his credit score, Jack Truong has a formidable historical past of researching untapped market niches and subsequently creating the requisite items and companies to satisfy them — all to the tune of main earnings. Whereas at 3M, he reimagined the faltering pale-yellow Publish-it be aware into the rainbow-hued, multiuse megabrand it’s immediately and was additionally instrumental within the growth of the corporate’s Scotch-Brite microfiber material, which has since turn into 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 study and perceive what the unmet wants had been in these industries, and give you innovations that ship revolutionary options for these specific sectors,” Truong instructed Building Information.
Why Corporations Should Pivot To Meet Evolving Client Wants
As instances change, there are inevitably going to be items and companies that fall by the wayside. Nonetheless, any such attrition solely accounts for a small proportion of failed enterprise endeavors. Sadly, the company panorama is affected by downed gamers who fell flat as the results of nothing a lot as missed alternative.
“As know-how advances and client demand evolves, firms and merchandise rapidly will be left behind,” Truong cautioned. “Too many organizations are targeted on creating, launching, and loading new applied sciences and options to current merchandise whereas ignoring the potential of new options that really make life straightforward for customers.”
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 doubtless. However the place they noticed stagnant growth prospects, Jack Truong noticed promise.
“Again in 2011, after I joined, [Electrolux] was a few $4.2 billion enterprise,” he instructed CEO Journal. “The corporate noticed North America as a mature market and didn’t count on any progress. In reality, after I took over, the corporate wasn’t rising and revenue was declining.”
Throughout his first assembly with the corporate’s international 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 had been shocked … however North America is a really massive market and it ought to be rising.”
After sussing out the competitors’s strengths and weaknesses, Truong targeted on market suggestions to discover a worthwhile answer. 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 gadgets that customers 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 doable 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 Client 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. Nonetheless, as client preferences morph to satisfy the altering market, Jack Truong asserts savvy leaders should persistently tune in to buyer suggestions in the event that they hope to succeed.
Stakeholders have to establish not solely which issues their clients like and which they hate, but additionally pinpoint the products or companies for which there’s a urgent client want they’re both unable to seek out or can’t fairly afford. “Creativity prices cash and innovation drives worth,” Truong defined. “Pay attention fastidiously to what customers don’t say, and observe intently what they do. Solely then do your improvements have the potential to vary client habits and create true worth and demand.”
Truong warns dashing a product to market with out carefully doing all your homework first can have disastrous outcomes. In the event you’re on the lookout for a major instance of a extremely anticipated product that was neither budget-friendly nor glad customers’ 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 know the true unmet wants of its customers when the corporate first launched its ‘moonshot’ Google Glass in 2014. Regardless of the ‘good’ glasses’ cutting-edge know-how, the product was discontinued after only one yr. Regardless of its stay 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 Ultimate Lesson from the Sharks
It’s a extensively accepted perception that sharks should preserve in steady ahead movement to outlive, and it’s a technique that some misguided leaders cling to, even when it really works towards their greatest pursuits. The reality is, the outdated shark adage is extra fable than aphorism. Though some species do get hold of oxygen by water passing over their gills, sharks that depend on the inner pharynx to breathe can stay at relaxation and never asphyxiate. Shifting ahead with out first navigating a successful course has sunk a couple of enterprise.
Differentiating between a really important unfulfilled client want and falling prey to the “one thing shiny” syndrome will 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 client 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 enchantment of bacon, it turned out this invention was each a fireplace hazard and a meals security danger.)
As elemental as listening to customers could also be, Jack Truong factors out it’s solely step one in an extended course of. After gathering the pertinent suggestions knowledge, it have to be totally analyzed and put into the context of real looking deliverables. Solely then can revolutionary methods geared toward diminishing client ache factors and delivering pleasure metrics be set into movement, permitting companies to leverage acceptable assets to create novel options that preserve the client glad and increase firm gross sales figures accordingly.
