Growth Insights for CEOs
Bob Sherlock
Recent Posts

Turning Customer Insight into Customer Value
Executive Takeaways
- Your next major deal may begin with a customer problem you have yet to uncover.
- Deep customer insight can open doors to executives—and accounts—competitors already serve.
- The greatest opportunities emerge when insight meets distinctive expertise and solutions.
- Turning these opportunities into growth requires building organizational capability.
This blog is part of Chief Outsiders’ New Growth Imperative series, designed to help CEOs and leadership teams engage executive decision-makers at targeted strategic accounts by turning deep insights into compelling customer value.
Recent Posts

Sold, not Bought: The Marketing of Unfamiliar Solutions
Mon, Nov 20, 2017 — Several years ago I met Davis, an executive in Ohio, who segmented his product lines into “Bought, not Sold” and “Sold, not Bought.” “Bought” products, he said, were familiar to prospective buyers. They had self-diagnosed what they needed and self-prescribed a product solution for that need. Often, they’d previously purchased a product in the category. By contrast, a “Sold” product presented an unfamiliar solution—so the prospect couldn’t self-prescribe, and may not have self-diagnosed. In fact, their need could be latent and wouldn’t be recognized without prompting.