It’s simple. Adding value is about sourcing additional ways to provide benefits and outcome based solutions for your customers. It’s not the “how-to,” it’s the result.
Customers come to you for answers, not a diatribe. And your business success is notable because you provide a product or service (or both) that bears a standard above your competition. But with increased pressure for your customers’ time and money, and with instant access to information on the Internet, your job has become increasingly more difficult.
Membership organizations and associations struggle with the concept of adding value all the time and it comes down to one simple concept, obsess over your customers to the point where you can solve their problems before they arise. In doing so, using an outcomes-based process to discover solutions, rather than focusing on the features of your business, is helpful. As an example, consider:
- Values to add instead of the how-to.
- Ends rather than the means.
- Accomplishments over activities.
I find that when I focus on the ends and accomplishments through results-oriented thinking, the means and measurements along the way tend to illustrate themselves. The trick is to master the activities and systems that lay the foundation for becoming great at what you do. And with the ultimate goal in mind, you’re sure to become the best in your field. You’ll have tricks of the trade so efficiently orchestrated that it will take a long time for your competition to finally see the strings that made the it all possible.
But that’s the beauty of it. You’re putting in your time and your ideas to create a wholly new arrangement of benefits to offer that raises the bar even further. Listen to your customers to find innovation. Know your competition, be better, know your customers, and don’t be afraid to change. Often times it just takes a different perspective on the way you do business to recognize untapped avenues of growth and opportunity.
Finding new solutions for your business to offer doesn’t have to be a chemistry experiment, nor does it require a puppeteer. The glass is already half full, figure out how to fill it to the brim.
Photo courtesy of The Telegraph.
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