The exact statistics may vary, but most people that have ever worked in or around sales will tell you that it is significantly harder, more time consuming, and more costly to acquire a new client than it is to retain and grow an existing customer. However, those same people will also tell you how important it is to constantly be growing your account base. With that in mind, anything that can help with client acquisition has to be a good thing. There are many best practices in this area, but market research is probably not the first thing you would think to use. Yet, it can be one of the most powerful.

There is an old adage in business that goes something like: "If you have two managers that always agree then one of them is redundant." Thankfully, this is not employed in most companies today, and it is not a school of thought I agree with or endorse for a couple of reasons.  

It is difficult to go more than a few days at the moment without reading something about 3D printing. Everything from body parts to food can now be printed. I even read just this week that it is now possible to print an entire house. 3D printing seems to be the next "big thing" and will revolutionise manufacturing, and, whilst it may not replace mass manufacturing any time soon, for small runs or niche products it will be mainstream before we know it. So, this got me thinking: haven't we been here before?