What DOES value mean these days? Saving a few bucks? Or giving you something that creates worth?
Everyone has a different connotation when they hear the word “value;” and, for this youngster, growing up in Northern Indiana, mine was shaped by a place called “Value House.” (Rather obscure, this reference – couldn’t even find Value House on Wikipedia.)
Value House was a catalog showroom. They had a catalog and you could order from it and have something delivered to your home. Or, if you prefer, you visit the store and see what’s there. If you ordered something, you took a slip up to the front and waited…then, a few minutes later, they delivered the goods. Someone from the backroom pulled the item off of a shelf and the item went on a conveyor belt and then it was yours.
The problem? Value was an adjective, or a noun. Not a verb.
The House of Value (Value House) created the sense that you were going there to buy something of limited value. And, since the stuff was aimed at middle-class folks like me, then it was obvious that “value” included toys, games, sporting goods and those sorts of things.
How do you “value” (verb) your services, and how do you communicate that value?
As you would expect, we have a couple tips. 3 of them, in fact…
1. Value is, to you, henceforth and forever more, a verb.
I value your services. I value your time. I value you.
Example: When you’re doing a speaking gig, what value do you place on it? Is it “my honorarium is $500?” Or $5000?
Or, alternatively, are you performing a valuation that looks like this:
Number of people in the audience * their average hourly rate = value I am committed to providing.
We just ran counter to every single speaker argument we’ve ever heard. By design: it’s not what my time is worth as the speaker, it’s what your time is worth as the audience. Again:
It’s not what my time is worth as the speaker, it’s what your time is worth as the audience.
Think like this about your audience and, we assure you, you’ll end up with more random calls that say “Hey, we’d like you to speak to our audience. What’s your honorarium?”
2. Value Should Be Easy to Quantify.
Had an exercise this very morning that communicated, to me, the value of a specific service.
I spent 45 minutes (again) removing bad script from two sites that had been hacked. (This one and 12 Minute Marketing.) This is 45 minutes that I could have spent on a number of other things.
What if this happens again? Tomorrow? What if my sites are constantly under attack?
This isn’t the focus group price testing, this is, to borrow from Tim Ferriss, the “I have 50 units in my car, I need to move them now” testing.
45 minutes of my time * hourly billable rate of $250 = I will gladly pay more than that to be able to focus on other things.
It’s now so easy to communicate the value – because I now know what it’s worth.
3. Value Should Never Mean “Cheap.”
Don’t back down on this.
Also, don’t give us crap: “It’s a $997 value but we’ll give it to you today for only $3.99” tells me that you’re really bad at math.
If I, as the service provider, follow step 1, I know your time is valuable. If I follow step two, I know how to quantify the value you’ll receive.
So, with anything – a product, a service, a cup of coffee – I know that you’re getting your money’s worth.
Wait, doesn’t Starbucks do this really well? Communicate the REAL VALUE you’re getting when you walk into the store?
You’ll go really far in your own branding efforts if you start thinking about WHY you behave certain ways. WHY do you go to Starbucks when you know it’s more expensive than its competitors?
It’s easier said than done, right?