Adding Value to Your Clients and Stakeholders

Many business owners readily acknowledge that customers are the life-blood of business.

Yet, if truth be told, this is not reflected in the way plenty of businesses treat their customers.

What is even more tragic is that plenty of business owners do not have a clear understanding of the range of stakeholders they serve, who not only desire that the business treats them with the utmost care but also deserve to be properly integrated in to the decision-making processes of the business.

It is fair to say that massive businesses often have strategic planning & impact analyses processes, which help them to think more broadly about the range of people they serve & how their activities affect them but plenty of small businesses basically do not pay attention to this, to their detriment.

As an example, I attended an event sometime ago at which several speakers were invited to speak. Regrettably, due to a combination of factors outside the organiser's control, of the speaking slots was sparsely attended. & the speaker reacted in a fascinating manner...

Stake-holder Context

Do you pack up & leave in a anger, seldom delivering your talk, threatening the organizer with fire & brimstone or do you recognize that there's some key stakeholders, like me who travelled hundreds of miles, specifically to listen to you speak?

Now, what would you do as a speaker in case you were promised that 300 people would attend to listen to you speak but only six people showed up?

In fact, in this specific instance, of those who showed up was a , influential radio character and PR guru who was thinking about a partnership that would elevate the speaker to a whole new level of visibility and business success, but of work he did not like the speaker's attitude and the deal was dead in the water.

One of the six individuals who came to listen to you speak might be the key to quickly speed up your business, in ways that a roomful of 300 might never be able to do.

So how do you add value to your stakeholders?

The moral of the story... Think carefully about adding great value to ALL stakeholders, not those whom you think about to be current customers.

By understanding that there's key parts of value...

a) Inherent Value
b) Perceived Value

Perceived value: is the 'intangible experience' you generate in the minds of your clients and stakeholders that make them rave about you and your business. It is what might be described as the X-factor of your business. And this is where plenty of business owners or organizations fall flat on their faces.

Inherent value: is the actual content and quality of the goods or services you are delivering. For example, in the event you are a caterer or restaurant owner, it is the actual food or drinks you serve to your clientele, for which the customer is prepared to pay a definite 'reasonable' cost. Some business owners focus plenty of their resources in getting this right, hopefully, you already do .

This perceived value is the source of pricing advantages which allows business to charge a seemingly astronomical cost for the same thing that their competitors sell at lower prices and yet the clients are willing to pay the 'unreasonable' cost and keep coming to the higher priced business.

You must see value from your customer's point of view. What you think about valuable may not be what your clients think about valuable. You need to get in to the mind of your customers & stakeholders to discern what they need when they come to do business with you.

The key principle as a business owner is therefore to ask the question; 'What does my customer or client think about valuable?'

In the words of Mike Harris, the amazing business professional & founder of billion pound companies including Egg & First Direct Banks, it is about how the stakeholders 'feel' when they interact together with your business. & how would you like anyone to 'feel' when they meet you or your business?

That idea of 'feeling' is the key ingredient that goes in to the perceived value for which your different range of stakeholders would be willing to invest their time, money & hard work in doing business with you.

So, let me ask you this query:

In what way are you adding value to your stakeholders & how are you able to increase this value?