You have incredible products or services that solve serious problems or challenges for your market segment. Whatever you offer must be perceived as priceless to your audience. When creating value for customers, consider defining who you want to BE to them. Knowing who you are to them and what you mean to them helps you be successful.
Creating Value For Customers Requires Beingness
Think about yourself and the stories in your own life. When you reach for your favorite brand of barbecue sauce, would you part with it for any reason? If so, the value to you regarding it may be so-so. You may think of the company who sells the barbecue sauce as just a big corporation. Are you THAT to your customers? If so, would you like to keep being perceived that way to them?
What about the brand of toilet paper or the electric company that serves you? What drives you to stay with what those product/service providers and keep things the same? The perceived value you associate with any product or services company is why you stay or leave. They MEAN something to you. It is their BEINGNESS that triggers a feeling within you to stay with what you’ve got.
Feelings drive buyers to buy and become loyal to a certain brand. So, think about what the vendors in your life mean to you. Whatever they mean to you, you derive feelings as a result of staying with them. Those feelings drive you to stay.
A successful business is all about creating value for customers. So, who are you to your customers? If sales are less than stellar for your company, consider redefining who you ARE and what you mean to your customer list. Do you need to change something to improve your relationship with those people who make your successful business lifestyle possible? If so, it will have to do with a mindset audit about who you are NOW to them and who you want to BE to them for a sustained future with them.
Creating Value For Customers Means Being A Business Friend
Here’s a simple exercise for you to complete. It will help you determine if you are seen as a meaningful business friend by your market or just a nebulous supplier of products/services. It can also help you stimulate whether or not you want to change who you ARE to your customers.
It is much easier to sell something new to proven happy customers than it is to invest in marketing, advertising and promotion for new customers. In the mind of the people who buy from you, you already ARE somebody to your customers. Who ARE you?
How do YOU see yourself in your relationship with your buyers?
- Simply as a place that provides products/services?
- A real live person who genuinely cares about each customer as an individual?
How do you keep being seen as a business friend? What might you change to add more value and sustain your customer relationships?
If in the past you haven’t reached out to develop a relationship with your customers, do you want to continue just being a one-time point of sale business that sells stuff once? Or do you want to change something to keep adding value to your list of proven buyers?