(Time to read this Blog is about 3 minutes)

Before we get to the main topic, here are a few things to get you thinking or smiling:

1. My Biz Quote of the week:  
   “If you don’t listen to your front-line staff, your customers will have to…and it won’t be pretty.”
   …Donald Cooper.
    
2. Quick Biz Tip:
   40% of newly promoted 1st-time managers fail within the first 18 months:
    
   A recent survey states that 40% of newly promoted first-time managers fail within the first 18 months.  My guess is that this number is low.
    
   ‘Doing’ is fundamentally different from managing.  But in business, we often take our best ‘doer’, make him or her a manager, without the extensive training required to successfully manage things and lead people…and we wonder why it doesn’t work out.
    
   If you don’t have the time, resources or ability to do the proper training, don’t make the move.  Either they’ll muddle along creating problems, inefficiency and frustration for all concerned…or they’ll leave. Either way, you’ll end of losing a great ‘doer’ and still be down a great manager.  And, in the process, you may have severely damaged their life.
    
   The solution…develop an effective training course for first-time managers, or send your people with potential to such a course somewhere in the outside world.  Then, ask them if they even enjoyed the management stuff they learned.  Did it turn their crank?  If not, nurture and cherish them as great ‘doers’ and don’t promote them to be failures. 
    
3. New car prices have gone crazy. As of June, 2023 the average price of a new vehicle in Canada increased by 21% year-over-year, to a record high of $66,288.
    
   Add on higher interest rates and the average monthly finance payment on a new car was $797 as of June, up 38 per cent from June 2019.  Because of all this, the price of used cars has also skyrocketed.
    
4. Ford Model T ‘fun facts’. By constantly improving production efficiency, the Model T price fell from $825 in 1908 to just $360 in 1917. While the price was coming down, quality, features and performance improvements were constantly added or improved. Fifteen million Model T’s were sold by 1927, resulting in a 61% market share.
    
   So, what are you doing to constantly improve the quality and performance of the products or services you sell, while continually improving operational  efficiency?
    

5. Shameless Promotion:
    
   If you or your Industry Association have a Conference coming up in the next 12 months, perhaps we should talk. As a thought-leader on management, marketing, staff engagement and profitability, I deliver bottom-line business insight in a way that informs, energizes and inspires.

   To quote one recent attendee, “Best, most real, insightful and entertaining management session I’ve attended in 30 years.  Bring this Cooper guy back!”  

   Our most requested topics are:

   1. “Accelerate Your Business…the ‘straight goods’ on how to sell more, manage smarter, grow your bottom line…and have a life.”
   2. “Winning the Talent Wars…8 essential steps to attracting, developing, leading & engaging a top-performing team.”
   3. “Vision Critical…how to manage, innovate and thrive in a very different tomorrow!”
   4. “Succession Planning & Exit Strategies…preparing your business and yourself for the most important financial transaction of your life!
       

   I’m happy to chat about possibilities at 416-252-3703 in Toronto. 

Now, to this week’s important topic:

 Finally, the simple truth about ‘Value’: 

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!

1. 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, support 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.
   
  So, how can we improve our Functional Value in the 4 areas listed above?
   

2. 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.
    
   Making people feel good, on its own, may not earn you the business, but making them feel lousy, will likely lose you the business.   
    
   So, 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.
    
3. 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 we delivering the compelling combination of functional, emotional and financial value that makes us the clear ‘wise choice’ for our target customers?  If not, what needs fixing in our business, who will fix it…and by when?
    
   Then, when we’ve done the work, we need to effectively communicate our compelling value story in everything we do.  There’s no point being the best if we’re also the best kept secret.

Note: If you’d like a little coaching help with this important process of creating, delivering and communicating compelling customer value, I’m easy to find at donald@donaldcooper.com.   

That’s it for this week…

Live brilliantly!       

Donald Cooper 

Donald Cooper speaks and coaches internationally on management, marketing, and profitability.  He can be reached by email at donald@donaldcooper.com in Toronto, Canada.