The Relationship of Value to Results
When I was a kid, my dad taught me the most important business principle of my life: “Give value: do more than is expected!” For individuals and businesses to realize their vision and truly succeed, this principle should drive all thought processes. It is the foundation of whatever success I have enjoyed, and in fact, my entire business is based on helping my clients develop and execute their visions based on that idea.
Leadership is a results contest. If leaders don’t deliver results, they are asked to step down and are replaced by others. In the case of the self-employed, if they don’t deliver results, they go out of business. A powerful concept every leader must understand is the relationship of value to results. As Warren Buffett stated so well:
“Price is what you pay; value is what you get.”
We’ve all heard the term buyer’s remorse. I think it is a polite term for the way people feel when they have purchased something and the item or the experience did not meet their felt needs and expectations. In many instances, this disappointment accelerates through remorse and becomes anger. We have all found ourselves in this disappointing condition, and it’s all about value. Did we get what we wanted, and did the product or service meet or exceed our felt needs and expectations? The negatives of disappointment are significant, but there is a huge positive impact on results when products or services exceed value expectations.
Think about this: when a product or service meets the expectation of customers, those customers will be satisfied with their purchase, and they will not be remorseful about the purchase. However, if the product or service merely meets an expectation, it will not always translate into growth for the business. Just meeting an expectation doesn’t get people excited. They are merely satisfied with what they got for their money. They won’t necessarily become a raving fan and tell others about the product or service. Worse, they remain open to the sales and marketing efforts of competitors and are more likely to buy based on price, rather than value. People who are merely satisfied are people who can be influenced by your competitors who are able to sell on the basis of value. These are the people who can shift market share percentages when they shift their allegiance to products or services that promise to exceed their expectations through greater value.
When we buy something that exceeds our expectations, we are blown away by our good fortune. We can’t believe that we “got all of this” for what we paid. What we got could be a combination of product quality, customer support, the effect the product had on our lives, or any other thing that’s makes us happy about the money we spent. When our expectations are exceeded, we become walking advertisements and testimonials for the product or service. Every time we run across a friend with a similar need, we tell them about what we got for what we paid. We are raving fans at that point, and a raving fan can’t be tempted and lured away by competitors. This is the kind of customer that leads to growth and great results for any business