Value streams flow from suppliers through your store to consumers if you offer what people value as conditions change.
Value streams are shaped by needs & desires. Influence your streams by customizing superior benefits for individual needs & desires.
Retailers can fail if they promote products instead of featuring ways to overcome obstacles.
Retain customers by helping them navigate life & prepare for changes.
Determine how to fulfill top priorities by asking about customers' needs, desires & experiences. Use their answers to form questions when you ask: 1- suppliers about products; 2- officials about government plans &/or 3- knowledgeable people about natural causes & effects.
When you know what to expect & how products work, you can develop kits based on customers' desires & needs.
Assure people they can produce benefits with the right products, methods & advice.
A basic template is: This kit has plans plus products with instructions to produce (benefits) with these methods: ___. Instructions show techniques for using products. Plans combine techniques into methods.
Reducing Disappointments
People might adjust unfulfilled expectations & still be frustrated. You can decrease disappointments by matching expectations with products & helping people customize results.
People might be frustrated when products are discontinued. Distinguish your business by offering locally significant benefits instead of specific products.
Explain how you reduce disappointments with warranties, product quality & information. It makes your store a dependable resource for people dealing with stress. You can be a trusted consultant for preventing or mitigating negative causes or effects.
You can guide people to create benefits by increasing their understanding of current & potential conditions.
Note: If people are sensitive about benefits, you can focus on desired results. Be careful about offering to reduce negative emotions. Example: People might be proud when they lose weight. If you offer ways to increase pride, don't imply reasons for shame.
To avoid disappointments, people should avoid stores that don't offer total solutions.
Though paying low prices can be satisfying, satisfaction ends when people don't get positive results. Emphasize how you satisfy needs & desires with your knowledge of products & local conditions.
Customize ways to improve results as lives change.
Combine Products & Knowledge to Produce More Value
Don't assume people know how to solve problems or benefit from opportunities.
Since opportunities don't guarantee advantages, people need resources including knowledge. Since products don't solve problems without effort, help people choose & correctly use products.
Without information, products are like puzzle pieces without a picture. Plans should include descriptions of problems & solutions to help people identify which: 1- products fit their conditions & 2- results match their expectations.
Product kits & plans are good for differentiating your store. Kits can produce better results than individual products from discount stores.
When you print general instructions frequently, your invested time & money is spread over similar transactions. You can offer detailed plans at cost or a small markup.
Promote project kits including products, checklists, instructions & plans to help customers implement full solutions.
To find money streams, look for things people prioritize. What do they want to change or maintain?
Influence people's priorities by explaining why solutions & benefits are important. Explain how kits make solutions & benefits possible. Information helps people prioritize. Priorities motivate people.
Build Trust with Better Offers
Build trust with questions you ask & answers you give. Gain knowledge to anticipate consumers' issues. Learn about emerging needs & desires. Details can help you reduce people's stress with full solutions.
Offers should indicate you study about making customers' lives easier. Your concern inspires people's trust.
Streamline transactions with product kits. Kits are convenient because people can: 1- avoid mistakes in choosing materials & tools; & 2- solve problems sooner.
A basic template is: This problem has these symptoms: ___. Its causes & effects are __. Prevent its causes by __. Fix its effects with this kit & these techniques: ___.
Gain Trust By Limiting People's Losses
People are usually more concerned about losing things than gaining.
What are customers concerned about losing? Gain trust with offers customers need for limiting losses.
Compare suppliers' product offers with what customers need to prevent or replace losses.
Value streams can form where consumers' needs intersect with your talents & knowledge plus suppliers' offers. You can develop marketing tactics & strategies to position your business in those streams.
Full Solutions or Discounted Products
You need to balance whether you create unique offers or copy competitors.
When competing with big retailers, your store might be like a boat compared to ships. Consumers' demands can be streams too small for ships.
Precise products & advice for consumers' conditions are better than discounted products without information.
Track customers' product, service & knowledge needs to increase your expertise & respond better than competitors. If consumers have tried various options, compare results & expectations to determine better alternatives.
Since success can depend on specializing, consider your capacity for deep & wide product selections.
Local conditions determine which product models might be necessary. You can use your expertise to assemble precise solutions.
Compare conditions with your inventory & ability to support customers. If products are complicated, will you restrict your inventory based on your ability to advise customers about using products?
How well can you judge product quality? How well can you determine if product quality matches people's conditions?
Retailers can fail with cheap products & insufficient knowledge of products & conditions.
It's vital to offer & describe specific benefits so people can recognize options they need for their life stages.
Some suppliers sell to discount chains & upscale stores. If you offer the same brand products as competitors, you're fishing from the same stream & should differentiate with value beyond products.
You should emphasize how your inventory standards & knowledge affect people's results.
You also need to balance inventory with people's priorities. You'll be stuck with products if you don't motivate people to upgrade their conditions.
Referrals & testimonials can motivate people to invest in improvements & buy from you. By successfully supporting customers with products & advice, you can generate referrals & testimonials to motivate people.
Add Value With Advice
Help people determine how to influence or control their conditions.
People, who are in the same location & similar conditions, can have needs of different severities because they have different resources. How can they upgrade their resources to fit their needs? Is the problem treatable or should people retreat?
You should know when to advise people to try other options. Example: "I don't know if that would work as you want. Let's consider other options."
When people know you care about them, they're more apt to trust your advice. Service quality affects customers' feelings. People notice when retailers think of customers as money sources.
Consult with customers to find solutions based on product specifications & current or potential problem severity. Example: When problems start, people might need to do maintenance or make adjustments. If problems are severe, people might replace parts or make big changes.
Customers don't have to be experts, when you offer full solutions. When they have that much confidence, why would they choose other stores?
Is It Time To Change?
Product streams can end, start or change when people's priorities, needs & desires change. You can switch streams by changing your kits.
Monitor customers' conditions, so you'll know what's getting harder & you can adjust your kits & advice.
Do people need different products, methods or both? Ask about their needs & results to determine whether to change your inventory or knowledge base.
Be more concerned about how products fit people's conditions & your ability to sell solutions instead of whether other retailers reject products. Retailers have various business model criteria & reasons to drop products.
Here are some criteria to consider:
If you need to change suppliers, consider these criteria: Do suppliers push products or help you serve consumers? Do suppliers provide product information you need?
Some niche criteria should be whether people recognize a product's value & consistently pay profitable prices.
You can adjust your inventory & advice as you monitor how well products fulfill customers' needs. Use customers' feedback to track value. If value declines: 1- conditions are changing; 2- you offer the wrong products or 3- it’s the wrong niche.
Your business model criteria should be focused on helping people fulfill specific purposes. You'll increase awareness of your store's value as you promote products & services for specific purposes.
I wrote about purpose brands in this post - "Fulfill Customers' Needs With A Purpose Brand". Clayton M. Christensen & Michael E. Raynor explained purpose brands in The Innovator's Solution. You can check a search engine for a summary.
Thank you for using my blog. Please let me know if I should clarify anything.
Copyright 2019 Dennis S. Vogel All rights reserved.
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