Serving Everyone May Take Away Value
Does your business pride itself on serving everyone? Does the quest for more numbers flatten your value, or grow it?
Most businesses or organizations have a specific market. A segment, a group, a commonality that allows them to provide value to a piece of the pie, but not the whole pie.
Yet, it is often commonplace that people work really hard to accommodate the needs of everyone.
This has a price. The price is often that in the attempt to serve everyone they aren’t really great at serving anyone.
One user on the network, is just another user. Another product on display in Amazon’s website, just another potential source of revenue.
This may be true at the hospital, just another patient. It’s often true at the Pizza shop, the grocery store, and with your electric service provider.
Many of these service offerings don’t really make a big investment in you. They make and investment in the numbers. Yes, you may be one of them, but that’s it, just a number.
Serving Everyone
Some of the best service providers are building it with you which is not exactly the same as building it for you. Building it for you often scales to building for the number. It is the effect of the enterprise and the economies of scale.
Emerging software companies often start by building it with you. They are interested in your needs, the features you love, and the bugs that you discover.
The successful program starts to shift as the economy of the enterprise grows. They start building it for you. It is the attraction of the product, the marketing hype, and for the end-user, it’s a quest to remain part of the group.
Once they fought for you, now they fight to use you as a number in their game.
It is a similar concept for getting something for free. Sign up for the free webinar, the chance to win, or the no-cost obligation. If you aren’t paying you are not the customer, you are part of the marketing team. The goal is more numbers.
High value comes from those who are building it with you. The stakes are different and so are the outcomes.
-DEG
Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSPTM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.
