Seven Deadly Marketing Sins of Exporting #3
This is part of a series of seven posts. The first can be found here.
#3. being product and not customer centric:
What’s always impressed me about Israeli companies is the immense level of product innovations for a country of under 8 million people. Whether it’s medical technology, software encryption, mobile telecom or from a wide range of other industries, Israelis develop more product innovations per capita than any other country in the world.
That said, outside of you and I admiring this fact, no one cares.
No one cares that your technology might be light-years ahead of the industry. No one cares that your latest feature set is dramatically better than your competitors. No one cares about the awards you won, the staff that you hired, or anything else about your company.
No one cares unless you can show how your innovations can benefit them first.
If you’re truly interested in entering the US market, you need to check your ego at every customer’s door. You need to translate the most recent “bells & whistles” that your developers just released into bullet-pointed benefits that they will deliver. And you need to let your customers, not just your engineers, help drive your product development efforts.
US companies have a lot to gain from the innovations developed by your Israeli firm, but it’s up to you to translate those innovations into benefits that that they can understand.