For the majority of organisations, there are three kinds of value you can create for your customers that result in them staying longer and spending more with you:
- We can fix something that isn’t working for them - an existing pain point
- We can prevent something undesirable from happening - a potential painpoint
- We can improve something that is already good and make it great - this talks to a great experience
We have found that it's not only important to create value that's important for customers. It's equally important to understand which specific outcomes your brand offers customers and endeavour to either fix, prevent from happening or improve their current experience of your product and services.
If your customers aren't clear about the outcomes they are receiving, how can they evaluate whether it makes sense to keep using your product/service?
The Rule of Three is a powerful concept because most of us find it easy to keep three things in our heads. And for your customers, they can only hold three tangible outcomes in their head that justify their ongoing spend with you.
So how does applying the rule of 3 bolster your customer outcomes?
- It gets your customers attention and is memorable
- You are forced to choose the 3 most important outcomes for your customers
- You can be more structured, confident and decisive when you speak to your customers
Are you super clear on the three outcomes that every customer will receive from using your product or service?
When we hold our client Customer Value Proposition workshops we ask the room "what is your secret sauce?"
"What do you do or strive to do so much better and differently to the competition that does or would keep your customers coming back to you again and again?"
We often get met with stony silence.
And we understand why. It’s actually tough to boil down to just three things that secret sauce that makes you different. At the same time, it’s important to clarify what differentiates your brand from your competitors.
Last week, one of the attendees from a large Industrial company we are working with asked "What are your three?"
Fair Question:
- Our qualitiative research is more rigourous than anyone else
- Our outputs are more tangible and actionable because we deeply understand the journey
- We are really commercial so you can use more of what we give you
It is not uncommon for most of our clients to have never really done this work. It requires a depth of thinking and perspective and the reality is, it's hard to really crystallise the outcomes.
Large organisations with substantial revenues still operate with no clear Customer Value Propositions….for a time.
However, as the CEO of one of our clients recently told us, "We could go on for another 6 months or a year and do nothing, but one day we will wake up and it will probably be too late. Our competitors will have stolen a march on us and our revenue will start contracting."
Lots of leaders are consumed by BAU and understandably so, there is so much pressure on doing more with less.
Ensure you take the time to understand what it is exactly that makes you better and different from your competition.
If you would like a tool to help you better understand the "secret sauce" for your product or service, click here to access our Service Proposition template. And if you would like to watch a video here is the best one we have found to explain it.
If you would like some help we have developed over 100 versions of this for our clients. Within ½ day you can have your own too.
