The simple truth about value

Check out this great post on the simple truth about value, from our friend and business coach, Donald Cooper!

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Whatever you sell, your market is over-served and under-differentiated.  There are too many other businesses selling what you’re selling and most of you look alike, sound alike and charge about the same price.

Ultimately, customer ‘ownership’ and business profitability is about creating, delivering and communicating compelling value that ‘grabs’ your target customers, clearly differentiates you from your competitors, makes you ‘famous’ and grows your bottom line.  Customers demand value and every business promises it…but there’s a huge lack of clarity about what ‘value’ really is.

Let’s keep it simple; there are only 3 kinds of Value…Functional, Emotional and Financial Value.  That’s it!

We deliver Functional Value when we…

• sell extraordinary products, services and experiences that actually work for our target customers.
• are open or available when they need us.
• provide the information, coaching and encouragement that they need to wisely choose and effectively use what we sell. Be their ‘Caring Coach’.
• create policies, systems and processes that make us easy, efficient and consistent to do business with.

Next is Emotional Value. Most businesses struggle with this one.  They think it’s some airy-fairy thing that can’t be defined…and they’re dead wrong!

Quite simply, we deliver Emotional Value when our customers feel better about themselves and the world every time they do business with us, and every time they use what they bought from us.  That’s it!  If we’re not delivering Emotional Value, we’re not ‘connecting’ with our customers on an emotional level, which is where most buying decisions are actually made, or strongly influenced.

How could we deliver more emotional value?  How could we make prospects and customers feel valued, respected and safe?  How could we brighten their day with simple acts of kindness, joy and gratitude?  Whatever we sell, people come to us for that, plus joy!  We must never underestimate the power of joy. It may sound corny, but it will make a big difference in their day.  People will always remember how we made them feel.

Financial Value is #3. Most businesses put it as #1, but it has to be #3, because it’s a function of the previous two.

We deliver financial value when our customers believe that they paid a fair and competitive price for all the functional and emotional value they got from us.  If we don’t deliver extraordinary functional and emotional value, there’s no price low enough to be good enough.

So, the question is, are you delivering the compelling combination of functional, emotional and financial value that makes you the clear ‘wise choice’ for your target customers?  If not, what needs fixing in your business, who will fix it…and by when?

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For more information, or if you are interested in working with Donald Cooper, please reach out to him here:

www.donaldcooper.com

Phone: 416-252-3703

Email: donald@donaldcooper.com

Thank you,

Your Costen Insurance Team