Monday, 2.15 pm
July 30th, 2018
I’m no Stephen Hawking, but I like to think I’m intelligent enough to not get confused by a sandwich shop.
Apparently not.
See, from the moment I walked through a sandwich shop door this lunchtime, I felt like a rabbit caught in headlights.
There were 5 different types of bread…
30+ fillings…
20+ salad options…
Plus a myriad of pasties, sausage rolls, cakes, and other baked goods.
Don’t even get me started on the drinks.
I just had no idea where to begin.
Now, don’t get me wrong. The baguette was incredible. It was stuffed full of tuna, lettuce, cucumber, and red onion. It really hit the spot.
Problem is, the half an hour it took me to get the sandwich was more stressful than the time I got caught up in a political assassination in Cambodia (a story for another day).
Anyway…
It got me thinking about how I’d ended up with a delicious sandwich but felt confused in the process. How many others feel like this? Surely it’s off-putting for their customers.
That’s when I remembered something a mentor taught me a while back…
Value = experience + outcomes.
Every transaction, every sale, and therefore every business, product or service… involves an exchange of value.
In the case of the sandwich shop, I got a baguette and a bottle of Lilt in exchange for £3.50 of my money.
In other words: they delivered a good outcome, but a poor experience. A tasty baguette but a world of confusion.
And I’ve noticed a similar pattern in other businesses over the last couple of years. Either the outcome or experience was noticeably lacking.
The point?
By improving the experience and outcomes for your clients, you can…
• Increase prices
• Retain clients for longer
• Increase profits
Of course, this only applies if the experience and outcomes you provide are aligned with what your market wants. But once you can deliver that, your clients will reward you handsomely.
It’s also a useful framework for your marketing efforts. Next time you’re writing a blog post, social media post, direct mail campaign, email, or website page…. ask yourself:
“What experience and outcomes do I want my audience to get from this?”
Until next time…
Callum.