Opportunity with a customer/prospect can often be narrowed down to just two concepts: How important is the problem worth solving and How satisfied they are with present solution. Tony Ulwick of Strategyn discusses this a great deal in his concept of JTBD or Jobs-to-be-done.
I often draw the Opportunity matrix on a wall and start posting customers/prospects from a market segment standpoint. Most people understand why we would do this for market segments and even how to address each part of the matrix. For example, Lo-Importance we will typically have a longer sales cycle addressing more of an educational perspective.
However, I prefer to start with Key Accounts. Something we supposedly know the most about. This enables us to dig did deeper within each block. Knowing which customers put more value on the problem and/or how happy they are with our solution. Using the matrix this way, enables the obvious improvement path and allows us to find new product ideas, features, and benefits that we may create more opportunities for re-selling.
The not so obvious opportunity is finding new markets and customers. We have a tendency to limit ourselves in exploring new prospects by thinking only in demographics, especially through an occupational lens. We think of the type of customer as a contractor or a dentist. Understanding why someone cares so much about the problem will often lead us to other similar and maybe not so similar prospects. Who else cares passionately about this problem? Maybe it would be someone working with a contractor or dentist? It could even be a vendor to that profession?
There is no obvious step or strategy to use in exploration. It is why they call it exploration to begin with. However, the idea is to step back and develop a conversation not always about solving the problem but the conversation about the environment that contains the problem. It is these types of conversation that others find an opportunity to use your product. It might be the best form of viral marketing that I know. And, it comes from such a novel idea of understanding your customers better.