Customers as your strategic radar: how CEOs can reconnect with the market

If you are CEO of a SME or scale-up, it’s easy to say:

“We are close to our customers.”

But in practice, many CEOs in our region spend more time in:

• internal meetings,

• spreadsheets,

• and Slack/Teams threads

… than in direct, honest conversations with the people who actually pay the invoices.

In “100 Days to Make Your Mark as a CEO” I argue that, especially in a 100-day window, your customers should act as a strategic radar:

• They reveal what really matters.

• They show where your positioning is strong or weak.

• They tell you where the market is moving before your reports do.

More info on the book

Why dashboards are not enough

Dashboards are useful. You need:

• revenue,

• margin,

• churn,

• NPS,

• pipeline.

But dashboards are rear-view mirrors:

• They tell you what already happened.

• They don’t tell you why a customer is thinking of leaving.

• They don’t show you the early movements in their world.

If you limit yourself to metrics and second-hand reports, you are:

• one step behind reality,

• dependent on how others interpret what customers say,

• and at risk of making strategy decisions based on partial information.

Three types of customer you should talk to in your 100 days

In a 100-day reset, you don’t have to speak to everyone.But you should design a deliberate mix.

1. Your most profitable customers

Not just the biggest logos, but the healthiest relationships:

• good margin,

• repeat business,

• low drama.

Questions to explore:

• “Why do you really choose us, beyond price and habit?”

• “Where do we help you in a way others don’t?”

• “If you had to explain our value to a colleague, what would you say?”

This tells you where your real strengths are in the market.

2. Your “silent middle”

The customers who:

• pay,

• don’t complain much,

• don’t show up in the extremes.

They are easy to ignore.But they represent a big part of your base.

Questions:

• “What made you choose us originally?”

• “Where do we make things harder than they should be?”

• “What would make you look for alternatives?”

This helps you see hidden churn risk and opportunities to improve.

3. Customers you lost (or almost lost)

Uncomfortable, but extremely valuable.

Questions:

• “What triggered you to start looking elsewhere?”

• “What did you choose instead, and why?”

• “What could we have done 6–12 months earlier to avoid this?”

You will often hear:

• patterns that your team didn’t fully share,

• competitive moves you hadn’t noticed,

• moments where your value proposition stopped being credible.

How to structure these conversations as a CEO

You don’t need a heavy research project. You need honest, simple conversations.

Some practical tips:

• Be clear: “This is not a sales call. I’m in a 100-day reflection as CEO and I want to understand better how you see us and your own reality.”

• Ask open questions and let silence do some work.

• Avoid defending or explaining. Take notes instead.

• At the end, summarise: “I heard these three points. Did I miss anything important?”

After 5–10 such talks, you will start seeing patterns across sectors and company sizes.

Bringing customer insight back into the company

Listening without follow-up creates cynicism – inside and outside.

So in your 100-day plan, build in time to:

• debrief with your leadership team:

  • “These are the themes I heard most often.”

  • “This is where customers think we are strong.”

  • “This is where they are at risk or disappointed.”

• connect what you heard to:

  • your value proposition,

  • your sales approach,

  • your product/service roadmap,

  • your support operations.

Sometimes the biggest strategic insight will sound almost too simple:

• “We underestimate how much customers value reliability over novelty.”

• “We are losing deals because we are too slow in the proposal phase.”

• “Our smaller customers feel ignored compared to our big logos.”

Simple doesn’t mean easy.But it’s actionable.

Using customers as a compass in your 100-day plan

In “100 Days to Make Your Mark as a CEO” I suggest using a 100-day window to:

• reconnect with reality,

• reset your own role,

• and refocus the company.

Customers are central in that. Practically:

• block 1–2 half-days per month for customer visits or calls;

• include customer insight as a fixed agenda point in your leadership meeting;

• share anonymised customer quotes with your wider organisation, so people see the connection between their work and the outside world.

You are not doing this to “be nice”.You’re doing it because your best strategic antenna is still a real conversation with a real customer.

When you don’t have time

The classic objection:

“I’d love to do this, but I don’t have time.”

Reality check:

• 10 conversations of 45 minutes = 7.5 hours.

• Spread over 100 days, that’s less than 5 minutes per day on average.

If you truly can’t free up that time, the problem is not your calendar.The problem is how you see your role.

As CEO, being in touch with the market is not optional.It’s one of the few things only you can do in a uniquely credible way.