Sean Doyle | One Simple Strategy to Add Value to Customers in Meaningful Ways Centricity

ALI 19: One Simple Strategy to Add Value to Customers in Meaningful Ways
Keywords: provide that value for clients and customers.
 
Today’s episode of Aligned is all about one thing: value. But what does value even mean? From a practical standpoint, value leads to increased margins, more effective sales, and increased revenue. But value isn’t just practicality; there’s a depth involved. And on today’s episode of Aligned, Sean dives into the meaning of value and how to provide that value for clients and customers.
 
Defining Value:
From a customer-perceived value framework, value is the difference between a prospective customer’s evaluation of the benefits and costs compared to others. There are four categories of value: functional, monetary, social, and psychological. While it seems like a simple word, value has nuance. Its basic underlying concept is meeting the needs of an audience, whether those “needs” are wants or demands.  
The diamond water paradox:
Things with the greatest use have little (or no) exchange value. Conversely, the greatest exchange values often have little use. Adam Smith’s An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations examines the relative exchangeable value of goods by defining two value perceptions: the value in use versus the value in exchange. A simple example: nothing is more useful than water, but it costs nothing. Alternatively, diamond has little practical use but is an expensive commodity.  
The value triad: 
There are three ways we can offer value to the customer - revenue gain, cost reduction, and emotional contribution. Many B2B companies prioritize cost reduction. But because of that, most B2B businesses can grow by understanding the applications of emotional contribution and how to deliver it to customers. Looking at emotional contribution, we realize things that don’t raise revenue or lower costs are still valuable. Value can present itself as social power; it could be a service offering, the product packaging, the installation, the services delivered, or even the intake model.  
A quick story:
A purchasing manager is talking to a potential buyer who wants to demonstrate to his senior leadership that he’s contributing to the business. People in these positions are under pressure to complete transactions quickly and efficiently yet are blamed when something goes wrong. And their diligence and understanding typically get little recognition. If you can help the purchaser get out of a rut, get a visible win, and gain the attention of their bosses, you’ll make a huge emotional contribution (and thus provide value.)


How can you add value to your clients? Integrate value mapping. 
There are three potential aspects to a buyer’s behavior in the cognitive marketing model: financial pain, strategic pain, or personal pain. (The previous example would be personal pain.) Strategic pain has nothing to do with the dollars of the widgets or the amount spent per hour; it’s how you strategically add value to the entity. If you’re selling your products and services on an input basis (using the labor theory of value), try shifting that thinking to an emotional contribution model. You’ll understand why that person is buying from you and what that buyer is doing as a company. This lets you sell based not on inputs like labor, but the value labor provides. The key takeaway? Don’t immediately look to reduce cost or promise revenue. Instead, provide emotional contribution in quality or services, social recognition, and even marketing leverage.  
Episode Resources:
Aligned is a podcast for executives of emerging middle-market companies and executives pursuing growth and looking for new levers to pull.  Read more about cognitive marketing on FitzMartin’s website. Order Sean’s book Shift. To connect with Sean Doyle, find him on LinkedIn, or learn more about FitzMartin on the company web page.  Adam Smith’s An Inquiry