Priceless Value
In our simple view of the world, the customer will only part with their hard earned money if you can deliver something to them that is more valuable than the next best alternative. Therefore, we see the world of business and economics through a simple lens of ‘Value’.
In an increasingly competitive world, you should aim to give your customer more value. Never fall into delivering functional benefits as they will know how you will bring benefit to their life and compare those benefits to that offered by others, instead involve them in something bigger.
Introduce them to the ‘And/And’ relationship and forget about the ‘And/Or’ relationship. For example, look how large brands have done it, Tesco have embraced this with their ‘every little helps’ slogan, ie, get what you want at the price you want, leaving more for the other things you want. The parent company of Asda, Wal-Mart says it brilliantly with ‘Save money, live better.’ Aston Martin say it perfectly with their slogan ‘Power, Beauty and Soul’. What are the commonalities of these three brands? They have put themselves at the heart of their customers.
Forget about leading with your product or service because someone else will do it, bigger, better and for more value. Instead listen to the customers and put yourself at the heart of what they want rather than putting the consumer at the heart of everything you do.
In practice this is very difficult to achieve because you have to become the customer and not just think like the customer, a construct that most companies are not comfortable with.
What are the fundamentals to make this happen? We look at the 6 E’s:
Enthusiasm – Be an irresistible force of nature.
Edginess – Don’t be stable in the centre, be quirky at the sides
Execution – Fail fast, learn fast, fix fast.
Enraged – Never accept normality or ‘it cant be done’.
Empathy – Care about people, and connect with them.
Emotion – Appeal to the mind, body and soul.
As neurologist Donald Calne once said “Reason leads to conclusions, emotion leads to action.”
Embrace your emotions