Bama Pie Limited Company Free Essays

Bama Pie, Limited is an organization that strengthened â€Å"quality as a method of life.† Bama Pie has been the single source provider of pies to McDonald†s† U.S. We will compose a custom paper test on Bama Pie Limited Company or on the other hand any comparative point just for you Request Now activities. By giving top-quality pie items and â€Å"never missing an order,† Bama had the option to grow its center pie business via landing 50 percent of McDonald†s† broiler prepared, prebaked solidified roll needs. Another significant client incorporates Pizza Hut (for which Bama was creating roughly 25% of its bread stick necessities). Bama Pie delivered all the more then 1 million pies for each day from offices in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for McDonald†s. The History of Bama Pie dates to 1927 when Henry C. Marshall chose to use the pie-heating gifts of his better half, Cornelia Alabama Marshall, to give work to himself after a protracted time of being jobless. The company†s CEO currently was 38-year-old Paula Marshall-Chapman, who succeeded her dad in 1985 as a CEO of the organization. I) Quality has consistently been the company†s top need. à The organization had ingrained a complete quality administration discipline in its around 600 representatives through broad preparing and instructive projects offered through the in-house Bama Institute. Indeed, even fork truck administrators have engaged in taking care of the stock changes issue. ii) Long-term relationship with McDonald†s has permitted Bama Pie to develop alongside McDonald†s as one of its key providers. iii) Diversity of ability: Paula reshaped the supervisory crew fundamentally and gathered an exceptionally proficient staff with a normal age under 40. The colleagues are for the most part knowledgeable, experienced and youthful (they can serve the organization for a more extended timeframe). iv) BEBOPP: In 1990, Bama founded the Bama Employees† Bonus on Profit Plan to give extra motivators to all representatives in the organization. The arrangement depended on a yearly profit for deals target that was built up by Marshall-Chapman. The benefit sharing arrangement is a decent method of getting representatives included. v) Management abilities acquired by Paula: she was the individual prepared to run the new PC framework, and in that limit she took in the benefit of preparing individuals and helping individuals take care of issues. She was known as the Bama†s issue solver. I) Relationship with McDonald†s: Although Bama has been McDonald†s head provider of rolls for a long time, they had never settled an agreement. ii) Relatively little organization with restricted capital: Compare to Quaker Oats, Bama is a little organization with constrained capital for extension. iii) Limited product offering: Bama has a low assortment of items. iv) Limited market for its items: Its significant clients are McDonald†s, Pizza Hut, Wal-Mart and Sam†s Wholesale Clubs. v) Health Conscious Thinking: Consumers presently are more wellbeing cognizant and some of them do peruse the sustenance reality mark before utilization. Walnut pies contain a great deal of calories and fat. As buyers become more wellbeing cognizant, the walnut pies† deals may drop. I) Bama can grow its image by making new items, for example, hard treats, wafers and force bars. The organization despite everything has space for development in its under-used bread plant. ii) Buyout littler organizations that sell comparable items. iii) Joint Ventures with remote neighborhood firms: Bama can welcome an outside nearby firm to contribute together to make a nearby business. They can share proprietorship, control and benefits of the new organization. . I) Lose business with McDonald†s: Since over 70% of the company†s business originates from McDonald†s, if McDonald†s finds another provider, which gives less expensive pies and bread rolls, Bama may lose its business with McDonald†s. ii) Loss of Paula: As it referenced for the situation, Paula is the person who set up the company†s PC framework and she is known to be the â€Å"Bama†s issue solver.† With her administration ability, she is likewise portrayed as a â€Å"unique boss executive† by her representatives. She is the person who enrolls all the expert staff together and she is the center of the organization. iii) Competitors: There are a great deal of all shapes and sizes contenders out there. vi) Health Conscious Thinking: As I referenced prior, buyers presently are more wellbeing cognizant and some of them do peruse the nourishment certainty name before utilization. Walnut pies contain a ton of calories and fat. As customers become more wellbeing cognizant, the walnut pies† deals may drop. Instructions to refer to Bama Pie Limited Company, Essay models

Societal and Individual Interdependency in Salingers Catcher in the Rye :: essays research papers

Ideally, everybody would be content with the manner in which they are and everybody would acknowledge the distinctions of others. Shockingly, the world we live in isn't great and not every person acknowledges who they are . Is there a motivation behind why individuals can't be content with their lives or with the distinctions of others? The appropriate response is indeed, and the explanation behind the discontent is society. With society mentioning to the majority what is, and isn't satisfactory, it is no big surprise that individuals appear â€Å"lost†, and are urgently looking out their place in the sun. This quest for character is by all accounts the case in JD Salinger’s tale, The Catcher in the Rye. Through settings in the novel and imagery, Salinger represents that while the fundamental character, Holden Caulfield, needs the help of the earth around him, nature likewise needs Holden as an individual. Holden Caulfield is strange in any condition in which he is set. At Pencey, his school, Holden gets avoided from the exercises of his cohorts. At the absolute starting point of the novel, Holden becomes ousted on the grounds that his evaluations are not up to Pencey’s norms and furthermore in light of the fact that he doesn't feel like he has a place there. Holden isolates himself from his schoolmates generally by not getting engaged with the school. Despite the fact that Holden is the gear supervisor of the fencing crew, he removes himself from his partners by losing the hardware, indicating that he doesn't fit in, and he truly wouldn't like to. As he thinks about back his last day at Pencey he says: â€Å" They showed me out. ...I was failing four subjects and not putting forth a concentrated effort by any means. They gave me visit alerts to begin applying myself...but I didn’t do it† (Salinger 4). The school is tossing Holden out on the grounds that he isn't what they need to speak to potential understudies. They need to show instances of fine, upstanding youngsters, rather than emitting the picture of the falling flat, befuddled young fellow. Salinger utilizes Pencey as a fake society of certain sorts. Holden doesn't fit in at Pencey, and he most unquestionably doesn't fit in as found in the later settings of the novel. A second case of Holden’s disconnection from his schoolmates can likewise be seen when he remains solitary on the highest point of the slope during the â€Å"big game†.

Life Of Pi | Analysis

Life Of Pi | Analysis The book Life of Pi shows the Freuds hypothesis on the oblivious psyche in ones character. As per Freuds hypothesis, the psyche can be separated into two fundamental parts, which is the cognizant brain and the oblivious psyche. Oblivious brain is the best, and most possibly compromising is inconspicuous from the surface. The cognizant brain is effectively mindful of all that is going on. Be that as it may, the oblivious psyche impacts ones character and conduct without seeing it. At the end of the day, this hidden impact is the thing that each and everybody is ignorant of. Pi encounters both cognizant brain and oblivious psyche. He was intentionally arranging cautiously how he would make due in the ocean by arranging how he would spend his food with the goal that food doesnt come up short on flexibly. His cognizant psyche paid colossal commitments in helping him to make due in the ocean. At the point when Pi was youthful, his dad brought him and Ravi to the zoo to observe the ruthles sness of the creatures. He tossed a goat into an encased confine with a tiger. True to form, the tiger eats the goat savagely. Pis fathers motivation behind doing so was to clarify how perilous creatures could be. Pi was uninformed that this frightful occasion has changed his character to turn out to be increasingly brutal. So as to make due in the ocean, Pi executed fishes, ocean turtles, a winged creature and meerakats to extinguish his thirst and keep him to experience the ill effects of craving. Craving knows no companion however its feeder (Aristophanes 1) The statement implies that when one is in the condition of food denied, one would successfully fulfill the yearning. Pi unknowingly transformed into another person when he was food denied. Pi was absolutely unconscious of it since he depended on his endurance impulses to keep himself alive despite seemingly insurmountable opposition. This obviously shows hunger has drove Pi to act in manners that he never thought of doing in his long stretches of life. Another Freud hypothesis would be the Iceberg hypothesis. Ice sheet hypothesis expresses that the spirit of an individual is molded like an ice sheet. The piece of the brain which is obvious for all to see is the superego and the sense of self, both are the levelheaded pieces of the psyche. What lies underneath the surface is an a lot bigger region that is avoided the general visibility, as it were, another self that is warded covered up off. Despite the fact that Pi is an individual who has his religions wellbeing on the most fundamental level, he is profoundly principled, in any case, he has a creature within him who later presents itself all through his trial adrift. What's more, that creature would be Richard Parker. It was a condition of tense, short of breath exhausted. (Martel 155) exhibits that Pi was feeling sad and exhausted on the pontoon. This is the explanation Richard Parker is Pi since it was all the minds of Pi. Pi had his endurance impulse, Richard Parker within him. I clutched one idea: Richard Parker. I brought forth a few intends to dispose of him with the goal that the raft may be mine. (Martel 210) The id is the main impetus of the oblivious. It was dread of death that drove Pi to come out with the six intends to dispose of Richard Parker. His id was overpowering to the point that it defeats his superego since he needs to remain alive. This shows a people id commands the superego when one is battling in the middle of the life and demise circumstance. Pi would not have the option to endure if his superego was more grounded than his id. Other than that, Pavlov had a hypothesis about molding. The hypothesis proposes that relationship to the unconditioned upgrade is made with the molded boost inside the cerebrum, yet without including the cognizant piece of the psyche. Pi shows this hypothesis by utilizing a whistle to condition Richard Parker. TREEEEEE ! TREEEEEE ! TREEEEEE! (Martel 127) Moreover, Pi gives Richard Parker a portion of his food and water so as to control his psyche in imagining that he needs Pi so as to endure. In such a manner, Richard Parker has been molded to follow Pis orders utilizing a whistle, food and water. The sound of the whistle went about as though it was a whip and a seat utilized by the ringmaster to tame the lion in a carnival. Pi thought of a progression of preparing project to condition Richard Parker, for example, make him drink from a bucket, providing him with food and request that he do deceives by hopping through a loop to tell him that who is the alpha. It effectively helped Pi to get by with Richard Parker. Pi additionally molded Richard Parker by playing his dung. To show his defecation straightforwardly, to display the little of them, would have been an indication of social strength. (Martel 283) Richard Parker has been adapted to depend on Pi to endure. In this manner, the hypothesis of Palvol is plainly appeared in Life of Pi. What's more, in the story Life of Pi, there is likewise the hypothesis of human inspiration proposed by Abraham Maslow. There is a chain of command of Maslow related to the Maslows hypothesis. The chain of command of Maslow is portrayed as a pyramid made up of five levels altogether. Initially, the most minimal level and furthermore the predominant level is the physiological needs. The others are development needs to be specific security, love, regard and self realization. Physiological needs, for example, air, food and water are imperative to guarantee human endurance. At the point when one is happy with physiological necessities, with equivalent enthusiasm, one looked for wellbeing which is the second degree of progressive system of Maslow. Pi was persuaded to live by dread. Richard Parker was the person who dispensed dread on Pi to keep him enduring. I should say a word regarding dread. It is lifes genuine just adversary. No one but dread can vanquish life. (Martel 214) Pi was rou sed to not abandon his life so without any problem. Rather, he battled like a warrior with the goal that he could endure this agonizing catastrophe. Pi likewise conceded that if Richard Parker was not exist, he would as of now abandoned his life. It was Richard Parker who quieted me down. It is the incongruity of this story that the person who frightened me stupid to begin with was exactly the same who brought me harmony, reason, I dare say even wholeless. (Martel 216) This statement has demonstrated that Pi endure the depression in the organization of Richard Parker. Taking everything into account, the story Life of Pi is the ideal material to be dissect under psychoanalytic focal point as there are different pieces of the story which contacts the power of Freud hypothesis, Iceberg hypothesis, Palvol hypothesis and Maslows human inspiration hypothesis. Being abandoned on a remote location, the appetite, dread and agony are the characteristic senses one could have. These common senses are additionally the exacting prerequisites to the key of endurance. It may not be a logical truth, yet its mental truth. (Aldiss 1) this statement implies that a people character and conduct will most likely be unable to be demonstrated experimentally, however it very well may be demonstrated mentally.

Women and Poverty essays

Ladies and Poverty articles World neediness is a social government assistance issue that has tormented about each general public, all the more explicitly ladies in destitution. The issue of ladies and neediness and the Feminization of Poverty is an upsetting issue to be sure. The manner in which our general public is fabricated and a past filled with mistreatment has lead to the imbalances in the sexual orientations. This imbalance and economic wellbeing is among the explanations behind this pattern of Feminization of Poverty. The pattern of the Feminization of Poverty isn't new all through the world. It is anyway another pattern in America. Feminization of Poverty basically implies that a bigger number of individuals in neediness are ladies. The hole among ladies and men in neediness has kept on developing in the previous decade. Purposes behind this expanding hole originate from various degrees of our general public. Most of the 1.5 billion individuals living on $1 dollar daily or less are ladies. All through the world ladies win simply over fifty pennies on each keeps an eye on dollar. This demonstrates even in a working society that ladies are mistreated and compensated less for their endeavors. This effect of this distinction gets more grounded as salary diminishes. As ladies approach neediness they are denied basic things, for example, land, lodging, and credit. This disavowal comes sooner for ladies than men in light of the fact that on normal they are acquiring less. This makes a destitution cycle almost difficult to get away. Governments all through the world have perceived the sex measurement of destitution. This has lead to usage of legislative issues to help kill this issue. Sadly it is troublesome if not difficult to change the perspectives and activities of a whole society. Indeed, even at the degree of the family, a littler measure of remuneration is given to ladies than to men. This appears to transmit out into society and makes sexual orientation disparity. Elements that have lead to the expanding sexual orientation measurement in neediness come from the progressions to the organization of the family. In America the present separation rate ... <!

Customer Development Model Understanding Customer Discovery

Customer Development Model Understanding Customer Discovery INTRODUCTION TO CUSTOMER DEVELOPMENT MODELThe role of the vision for a business is huge. This vision offers a new product, service or experience that will reach a specific group of customers who does not just want what you offer but need it as well.But in the beginning, the vision that most businesses have is just guess-work. The vision often revolves around a product and how great it is and all of those people who might want to buy it. Developing a vision is important but that vision only serves you well if you can prove it to be true.If you want to turn your vision into a profitable business, you need to begin to develop and test your vision. This is what the Customer Development Model is all about. Your customers are out there; but only if you are willing to go out and find them.Customer discovery is the first part of the Customer Development Model. Customer discovery is the first of four steps in which you turn your vision into more than just a pipe dream but cold, hard facts tha t are eventually converted in sales figures and profitability.WHAT IS CUSTOMER DISCOVERYIn order to make the most of the customer discovery process, you need to understand what it is as well as what it is not. Without this understanding, too many businesses work to get the information that supports their beliefs about their business rather than the information that will help their business.The goal of customer discovery is figuring out who your customers are and whether your idea will appeal to them. You are not trying to figure out what every customer wants or needs. When you are looking for your initial customers, you are not looking for the masses. You are really looking for those few customers who your product is suitably designed for right now. These customers, often called product evangelists, are those who will adopt your product early and then share it with all your friends. They will be the most important and most valuable customers that you can ever have.These early custom ers are different from the rest of your market. Not only do they have a problem but they know that they have a problem. In fact, they are so upset about their problem that they are actually trying to solve it by any means possible. They may have temporary solutions of their own that work but are not ideal in the long-term.In the customer discovery phase, you need to figure out what problem your product solves and whether your customer actually has these problems and will use your product to solve them. Finding these early customers shows that your problem is real for someone. You will then use these early customers to help you iterate the product to suit their needs.It may seem counterintuitive to create a product that solves the needs of only a few customers. But chances are, the problems you want to solve do not happen in a vacuum. In too many cases, problems are widespread. However, not everyone realizes they have a problem until they are offered a solution. This is when the cust omer has the “Aha!” moment where they realize that a task could have been so much easier if only they had this solution before.Early customers have pain that is measurable and useful for you. Because of this, customer discovery is not about running focus groups. Focus groups have their value but they are not ideal for searching these early customers. A focus group will tell you more about the general issues that a mass customer base has. However, you are less likely to find a future product evangelist in these groups.Customer discovery is also not about pointing out which technical aspects of a product solve the customers’ problem. When you are going out to discover your customers, they are worried about their problem and finding a solution. Initially, they will want to know that you understand the problem and can offer a solution. But you will not be able to find these customers by spouting a list of features. These features are important to some customers. However, during th e customer discovery phase, it is the overall narrative of the solution that people are interested in. When you have a narrative or vision that offers a solution to a problem, you can establish whether or not there is a market that will ultimately share your vision.METHODS FOR UTILIZING THE CUSTOMER DISCOVERY PROCESSOnce you spend some time thinking about it, you can begin to see why the customer discovery process is important. But how do you go out and find those initial customers? For many, this seems to be the impossible part of the process. Almost all of the sales training that is delivered is focused on identifying wider markets and huge swaths of faceless customers, not the individual, passionate customer.Blank has developed a process that businesses can use to implement customer discovery. It does not include anonymous surveys or focus groups. Instead, it involves taking a measured approach to discovering customers that can be broken down into four main stages:Stage 1: State Your HypothesesYour hypotheses is part of the vision of your whole business. Hypotheses are a summary of all the things that you already believe about your market, the problem and your solution to the problem.You need to have formalized predictions in your business plan. These predictions must be in writing. Having these predictions documented is helpful because it is practical. When they are written down, it is far easier to adjust them upon further research.This practicality also offers psychological benefits. It is easier to avoid readjusting your hypotheses as you work. When you do this, it is harder to keep up with changes. Not writing them down can also lead to unsuccessful testing.Being able to pivot and change during Customer Discovery and further steps of Customer Development Model is essential. But these changes need to be made in controlled settings based on real information. Making changes on the fly is often the result of inferences. Inferences are just different predic tions. You need to wait until you have the whole story before you start making changes. This prevents confusion and offers more reliable results.After you have settled on preliminary predictions, you need to develop potential customer segments. Once you have your customer segments, you can create a contact list of customers.Once you have found potential customers, you should reach out to them. You will do this in the next step when you test your model.However, to proceed to your next step, you need to make sure that your hypotheses are testable. To make your theories as testable as possible, you need to make sure your information is very specific. The more specific it is, the easier it will be to determine whether it is true, false or somewhere in between. To make sure that your information is specific, use exact numbers and exact problems.Stage 2: Testing Your ModelYou want to make sure that you are testing your hypothesis as quickly as possible after it is formed. Depending on you r market, customers, products and trends may move very quickly. If you wait too long between developing your initial ideas and testing them, the market may have moved on. This can lead to you missing out. Testing quickly also helps ensure that you are getting your products to your customers faster. This is the ultimate goal of a start-up.You can use your own network to make your first contacts. You might want to contact your friends, people who you have worked with before, potential investors or fellow professionals in your field. All of these people might be potential customers. As such, they are the ideal people to test your hypothesis on.You will then create what Blank calls a “problem presentation”. A problem presentation is a presentation that is based on the problem that is outlined in your hypothesis. This presentation should not be highlighting your solution to the alleged problem. It is designed to focus in on the problem itself.The information that you can get about yo ur problem is very valuable to your solution. The feedback you get will tell you specific details about the problem, including how important the problem is to your customers. This is important because the more pain that people have from their problem, the more they will pay for a good solution.The goal of the problem presentation is not to tell everyone about your amazing product and encourage them to buy it. The focus must be solely on learning. Without this focus, the testing results will be skewed and won’t help you develop the right product for the right market.You will then gain better customer understanding and market knowledge. When you have more knowledge about the customers’ problem, you can ask leading questions around their problem. For example, you can ask about how they currently deal with the problem and how well the temporary solution works.In addition to reaching out to potential customers, you should also be reaching out to the wider industry to see what others are doing. You will need to know who your competitors are and what they are doing. You will want to know what companies or individuals have influence in your market. You will also want to know what trends are currently happening in the market.Once you have all of this information, you will be able to come up with the Blanks “problem statement”. This may reflect your initial hypothesis but ideally it will be far more specific.Stage 3: Testing the ProductNow that you have learned more about your customers and their problems, you can begin to test your solution. This is something that you can do only after you have a firm understanding of the problem, the customer and the market. Without this information, the information you learn testing your product will mean little. The Customer Development Model is all about putting your solution in its wider context.You will then test your model again with a presentation of your product. This presentation will not be for your customers. Instea d, you will use this time to share all of the information you have gathered with the product team. As a team, you can use this information to consider how the product itself will support the customer and the problem statement.This is the part of customer discovery where things begin to become iterative. You may find that your product as it stands does not fit within the market that you are trying to enter. As a result, you will need to make a decision about whether minor or fundamental changes need to be made to the product.If your product is a good fit for the market generally but requires changes, you can reconsider certain features of the product. Once you have made these changes, you will need to present the product a second time to validate the changes and measure the success of the changes against the customer problem.If you realize that there are fundamental issues with your product when compared to the customers you have identified, you may need to begin again and identify a new market.Once you have presented the original product, and possibly the modified product, you will have gathered enough data to be able to begin putting together several key parts of your business. You will need the following four documents in order to move into the final step of customer discovery:Your sales revenue planYour business planYour product planYour product requirement documentStage 4: Verify Your Model and Moving ForwardIn the final stage of the customer discovery process, you will compare the information that you learned in the previous two stages.The result of this comparison will tell you one of three things. Either you will be ready to move forward to customer validation or you will need to iterate this process. In some cases, you may find that you need to stop work altogether.After you have looked at all of the data that you have gathered earlier in the process, you should find that you can identify the following three things:The Problem:You should be able to ide ntify the problem that customers have. You should also know how important that problem is to your customers. If you are unsure of the problem or of the customer pain, you will need to begin again.The Product:You should be able to come up with a summary of the information that you got from customers about your product concept. By the end of the customer discovery phase, you need to know if the solution you offer actually solves your customers’ problem.If your product does not solve you customers’ problem, you can review and iterate your product.The Business Model:You should also be able to pull together enough information to create a solid business model for your product. The information that you have gathered from customers, the market and your product team should help inform you of the following key components of the business model:Sales processPriceDeliveryService requirementsPartnersCustomer relationshipsAny costs associated with maintaining partners and acquiring customersCO NCLUSION Based on Customer Development Model created by Steve BlankIn this article, you will find and learn 1) an introduction to Customer Development Model, 2) what customer discovery is, 3) methods for utilizing customer discovery process, and 4) a conclusion.INTRODUCTION TO CUSTOMER DEVELOPMENT MODELThe role of the vision for a business is huge. This vision offers a new product, service or experience that will reach a specific group of customers who does not just want what you offer but need it as well.But in the beginning, the vision that most businesses have is just guess-work. The vision often revolves around a product and how great it is and all of those people who might want to buy it. Developing a vision is important but that vision only serves you well if you can prove it to be true.If you want to turn your vision into a profitable business, you need to begin to develop and test your vision. This is what the Customer Development Model is all about. Your customers are out there; but only if you are willing to go out and find them.Customer discovery is the first part of the Customer Development Model. Customer discovery is the first of four steps in which you turn your vision into more than just a pipe dream but cold, hard facts that are eventually converted in sales figures and profitability.WHAT IS CUSTOMER DISCOVERYIn order to make the most of the customer discovery process, you need to understand what it is as well as what it is not. Without this understanding, too many businesses work to get the information that supports their beliefs about their business rather than the information that will help their business.The goal of customer discovery is figuring out who your customers are and whether your idea will appeal to them. You are not trying to figure out what every customer wants or needs. When you are looking for your initial customers, you are not looking for the masses. You are really looking for those few customers who your product is suitably designed for right now. These customers, often called product evangelists, are those who will adopt your product early and then share it with all your friends. They will be the most important and most valuable customers that you can ever have.These early customers are different from the rest of your market. Not only do they have a problem but they know that they have a problem. In fact, they are so upset about their problem that they are actually trying to solve it by any means possible. They may have temporary solutions of their own that work but are not ideal in the long-term.In the customer discovery phase, you need to figure out what problem your product solves and whether your customer actually has these problems and will use your product to solve them. Finding these early customers shows that your problem is real for someone. You will then use these early customers to help you iterate the product to suit their needs.It may seem counterintuitive to create a product that solves the need s of only a few customers. But chances are, the problems you want to solve do not happen in a vacuum. In too many cases, problems are widespread. However, not everyone realizes they have a problem until they are offered a solution. This is when the customer has the “Aha!” moment where they realize that a task could have been so much easier if only they had this solution before.Early customers have pain that is measurable and useful for you. Because of this, customer discovery is not about running focus groups. Focus groups have their value but they are not ideal for searching these early customers. A focus group will tell you more about the general issues that a mass customer base has. However, you are less likely to find a future product evangelist in these groups.Customer discovery is also not about pointing out which technical aspects of a product solve the customers’ problem. When you are going out to discover your customers, they are worried about their problem and findin g a solution. Initially, they will want to know that you understand the problem and can offer a solution. But you will not be able to find these customers by spouting a list of features. These features are important to some customers. However, during the customer discovery phase, it is the overall narrative of the solution that people are interested in. When you have a narrative or vision that offers a solution to a problem, you can establish whether or not there is a market that will ultimately share your vision.METHODS FOR UTILIZING THE CUSTOMER DISCOVERY PROCESSOnce you spend some time thinking about it, you can begin to see why the customer discovery process is important. But how do you go out and find those initial customers? For many, this seems to be the impossible part of the process. Almost all of the sales training that is delivered is focused on identifying wider markets and huge swaths of faceless customers, not the individual, passionate customer.Blank has developed a p rocess that businesses can use to implement customer discovery. It does not include anonymous surveys or focus groups. Instead, it involves taking a measured approach to discovering customers that can be broken down into four main stages:Stage 1: State Your HypothesesYour hypotheses is part of the vision of your whole business. Hypotheses are a summary of all the things that you already believe about your market, the problem and your solution to the problem.You need to have formalized predictions in your business plan. These predictions must be in writing. Having these predictions documented is helpful because it is practical. When they are written down, it is far easier to adjust them upon further research.This practicality also offers psychological benefits. It is easier to avoid readjusting your hypotheses as you work. When you do this, it is harder to keep up with changes. Not writing them down can also lead to unsuccessful testing.Being able to pivot and change during Customer Discovery and further steps of Customer Development Model is essential. But these changes need to be made in controlled settings based on real information. Making changes on the fly is often the result of inferences. Inferences are just different predictions. You need to wait until you have the whole story before you start making changes. This prevents confusion and offers more reliable results.After you have settled on preliminary predictions, you need to develop potential customer segments. Once you have your customer segments, you can create a contact list of customers.Once you have found potential customers, you should reach out to them. You will do this in the next step when you test your model.However, to proceed to your next step, you need to make sure that your hypotheses are testable. To make your theories as testable as possible, you need to make sure your information is very specific. The more specific it is, the easier it will be to determine whether it is true, false or somewhere in between. To make sure that your information is specific, use exact numbers and exact problems.Stage 2: Testing Your ModelYou want to make sure that you are testing your hypothesis as quickly as possible after it is formed. Depending on your market, customers, products and trends may move very quickly. If you wait too long between developing your initial ideas and testing them, the market may have moved on. This can lead to you missing out. Testing quickly also helps ensure that you are getting your products to your customers faster. This is the ultimate goal of a start-up.You can use your own network to make your first contacts. You might want to contact your friends, people who you have worked with before, potential investors or fellow professionals in your field. All of these people might be potential customers. As such, they are the ideal people to test your hypothesis on.You will then create what Blank calls a “problem presentation”. A problem presentation is a presentation that is based on the problem that is outlined in your hypothesis. This presentation should not be highlighting your solution to the alleged problem. It is designed to focus in on the problem itself.The information that you can get about your problem is very valuable to your solution. The feedback you get will tell you specific details about the problem, including how important the problem is to your customers. This is important because the more pain that people have from their problem, the more they will pay for a good solution.The goal of the problem presentation is not to tell everyone about your amazing product and encourage them to buy it. The focus must be solely on learning. Without this focus, the testing results will be skewed and won’t help you develop the right product for the right market.You will then gain better customer understanding and market knowledge. When you have more knowledge about the customers’ problem, you can ask leading questions around t heir problem. For example, you can ask about how they currently deal with the problem and how well the temporary solution works.In addition to reaching out to potential customers, you should also be reaching out to the wider industry to see what others are doing. You will need to know who your competitors are and what they are doing. You will want to know what companies or individuals have influence in your market. You will also want to know what trends are currently happening in the market.Once you have all of this information, you will be able to come up with the Blanks “problem statement”. This may reflect your initial hypothesis but ideally it will be far more specific.Stage 3: Testing the ProductNow that you have learned more about your customers and their problems, you can begin to test your solution. This is something that you can do only after you have a firm understanding of the problem, the customer and the market. Without this information, the information you learn te sting your product will mean little. The Customer Development Model is all about putting your solution in its wider context.You will then test your model again with a presentation of your product. This presentation will not be for your customers. Instead, you will use this time to share all of the information you have gathered with the product team. As a team, you can use this information to consider how the product itself will support the customer and the problem statement.This is the part of customer discovery where things begin to become iterative. You may find that your product as it stands does not fit within the market that you are trying to enter. As a result, you will need to make a decision about whether minor or fundamental changes need to be made to the product.If your product is a good fit for the market generally but requires changes, you can reconsider certain features of the product. Once you have made these changes, you will need to present the product a second time to validate the changes and measure the success of the changes against the customer problem.If you realize that there are fundamental issues with your product when compared to the customers you have identified, you may need to begin again and identify a new market.Once you have presented the original product, and possibly the modified product, you will have gathered enough data to be able to begin putting together several key parts of your business. You will need the following four documents in order to move into the final step of customer discovery:Your sales revenue planYour business planYour product planYour product requirement documentStage 4: Verify Your Model and Moving ForwardIn the final stage of the customer discovery process, you will compare the information that you learned in the previous two stages.The result of this comparison will tell you one of three things. Either you will be ready to move forward to customer validation or you will need to iterate this process. In some cases, you may find that you need to stop work altogether.After you have looked at all of the data that you have gathered earlier in the process, you should find that you can identify the following three things:The Problem:You should be able to identify the problem that customers have. You should also know how important that problem is to your customers. If you are unsure of the problem or of the customer pain, you will need to begin again.The Product:You should be able to come up with a summary of the information that you got from customers about your product concept. By the end of the customer discovery phase, you need to know if the solution you offer actually solves your customers’ problem.If your product does not solve you customers’ problem, you can review and iterate your product.The Business Model:You should also be able to pull together enough information to create a solid business model for your product. The information that you have gathered from customers, the m arket and your product team should help inform you of the following key components of the business model:Sales processPriceDeliveryService requirementsPartnersCustomer relationshipsAny costs associated with maintaining partners and acquiring customersCONCLUSIONAt the end of these four stages, you will find that you are either ready to move on to the second part of the Customer Development Model. Alternatively, you may also have to start all over again. In order to make the most of the customer discovery process, you need to be willing to be wrong. There is no point in moving forward with the process if you know that you are forcing your solution into a market that has no room for it. If you cannot come up with real answers that can be reflected in a real business model, you are not ready to move forward.In the next step of the Customer Development Model, you will take all of the information that you have learned in customer discovery and validate it.