Increase Sales: How Do You Establish Value?
In one of my last posts on pricing your products strategically I discussed the need to understand the value your product or service provides to the customer. Not long after that post was written I had a phone call from a small business owner asking: What is the best way to establish value for our buyers? In this post I will share some advice an excellent example of establishing value.
Before we get to that content I want to ask you a quick question:
Why do 42% of business start up’s fail?
The answer is they launched a business that had no unresolved market need. They did not clearly and completely understand the problem to be solved.
This group of entrepreneurs took the leap and often loose all their savings, their children’s college fund and so on. Why?
They failed to do their market homework before launching their business. Some questions they needed to answer include?
What is the problem you are trying to solve?
Who has this problem?… and how many others are like them?
Is the problem Urgent and buyers feel a pain to solve it?
Are buyers willing to spend money to solve it and how much?
It is not just small companies who make this mistake. Every day products and services are launched because companies can and not because they should.
How do market leaders, regardless of industry or company size consistently launch and grow their business?
They establish a high-perceived value for their products!
To do so they must first intimately understand their market, and the problems their buyers have.
With this information they solve the problem completely.
Then they make a compelling value proposition that resonates with their buyers.
They share this value in communities where there buyers belong.
Lets take a look at a great example of a company that established value: Gunner Kennels.
“Man’s best friend deserves man’s best kennels”
Gunner Kennels makes dog kennels. On the surface that does not sound too interesting. However if you have dogs, particularly hunting dogs they know you. They know the problems you often face when transporting your dogs and they solved that problem brilliantly.
Every detail of this kennel is built to make our traveling experience the best and safest it can be, whether we are on our way to the Mississippi Delta for a duck hunt or just running errands around town. Gunner has been my co-pilot since the day I drove to North Alabama to pick him up.
I built this kennel for my dog Gunner and for anyone else who loves seeing their dogs light up when you ask them to “Kennel,” and they know they are tagging along for your next adventure.
-Addison Edmonds, Founder
I wish I had found this company years ago! The downside of this crazy life of helping company’s fix their sales problems is we moved our family a lot. One of the biggest stress points for us as a family was safely moving our dogs. Will my Labs be safe in the belly of this big airplane? Will the baggage handlers be careful with my family members? What if something shifts in the cargo area and their crate gets crushed? (All these thoughts and more go through your mind)
Check out his video that demonstrates how much this company understand the needs of its buyers and how they establish value.
How about your company….
How do you establish value in the minds of your buyers?
Do you know how to quantify that value?
What techniques have worked best for your team?
When you clearly understand your market, buyers, how they buy, and the criteria they use to make buying decisions you can establish value.
In my next three posts I will be sharing other innovative companies who not only beat the odds of start up failure but also are extremely successful because they established their value in the minds of their buyers.
