Customers’ Success Depends On You Maximizing Their Work

Help customers identify necessary labor to produce benefits & organize necessary resources. Customers need your product knowledge, local conditions information & leadership to make tasks & thoughts more productive.

It can seem strange to lead people to achieve their goals because motivation should be built in. After being discouraged by conditional setbacks &/or poor product quality, people might not challenge generalized thoughts leading to negative beliefs.

‘Nobody ever made that kind of scheme work’ & other generalized thoughts can be countered with specific ideas. Focus on what local people need so they realize you offer high quality products that work in planned projects.

Though people seem to never have enough time, better time management & cheap products won’t create great results. Explain why project kits are necessary for faster, better quality results.

Offer Example: ‘(Store) has project kits for (results). There are specific reasons projects will or won’t work. When positive & negative reasons are identified, projects can be customized to maximize positives & reduce negatives. At (Store), let’s review specialized information to learn about specific obstacles & opportunities for designing projects to create benefits & reduce frustrations. When you need (results), it’s hard to start projects because of demands on your time & energy. It’s time to invest in project kit advantages from (Store). After buying what other stores push, you’ll be relieved by investing in customized benefits from (Store).’

Why Should Customers Invest In Results of Your Leadership?

Customer integration requires collaborative leadership to ask & answer questions.

Before guiding people through transitions, be sure you & they understand starting points plus obstacles to desired results. Whether results should be temporary or maintained, people need instructions, so expectations are fulfilled & investments are preserved.

Since people have imperfect perceptions & knowledge, they might resist positive changes to predictable life routines. If people don't realize how disruptive problems will be, they might not know changes are necessary or understand how your offers make changes easier. Help identify & prioritize problems so people optimally invest time, energy & money.

Explain offers so people understand value they can receive & how to avoid consequences of unsolved problems.

Since imperfect lives can be series of obstacles, offer preparation resources to mitigate what's unavoidable. Consultations can help you understand people’s rough spots, their current resources plus successful & unsuccessful efforts. Consultations are also for guiding product choices & planning methods.

Though affluent people hire professionals, middle-income customers might need guidance to do or outsource any steps.

How can you help people through processes from problem discovery to solution maintenance? Identify existing & emerging problems. Compare products. Plan how to use unfamiliar products for creating & maintaining benefits.

When you write offers & do consultations, consider questions like these examples: Which causes & effects can & should consumers take on or outsource? If causes end, how long will effects last? Will effects cause further problems or is damage limited?

Cognitive Labor is a Legitimate Customer Workload

Even if potential thoughts are infinite, daily time & energy are finite. Though people have many needs & desires plus inspirational & aspirational ideas, follow-through is limited by knowledge, time & energy. When you help customers integrate needs, desires & ideas with your resources, you work together to turn potential into reality.

Offer Example: ‘When people need to prevent & solve problems, some stores offer barely adequate products. It’s like throwing lumber to stranded swimmers who need boats. (Store) offers consultations to guide you to find & use resources to fulfill goals. Let’s work together to combine the right resources to convert your needs, desires & ideas into reality.’

Allison Daminger wrote the article “How Couples Share ‘Cognitive Labor’ and Why it Matters”. Here are my interpretations of some of Allison Daminger's ideas plus my extrapolations:

Cognitive Labor includes thinking, planning, deciding & problem-solving. These mental tasks include anticipating needs, identifying options for filling needs, deciding among options & monitoring results.

For some issues, Cognitive Labor requires knowing, interpreting & applying limits.

Example: People are frustrated because they don’t know why plants aren’t healthy. Watering plants can be more complicated than gardeners anticipate. Some plants need some acid in soil, if water is acidic, it could be good for some plants & hurt others. Too much water can dilute acid & minerals in soil. Soil composition, heat, humidity & light affect how much water plants can tolerate. Gardeners can solve problems & cause others because things that help plants can also help harmful organisms. Gardeners need to do just enough to bring benefits.

People’s preparations for decisions are invisible, but significant & can be onerous.

Cognitive Labor Can Distract People From Other Tasks.

Anticipation is mostly in one person’s mind & can interfere with other activities because people have limited mental bandwidth.

Some decisions are spontaneous. High stakes decision-making is often done in a longer period, frequently involves conversations & is possibly postponed until convenient times.

Cognitive labor can lead to anxiety: People wonder if they’re forgetting anything. As conditions change & technology advances, people realize they don’t know valuable things. That knowledge gap means people won’t recognize emerging problems & don’t have resources for preventing or solving unrecognized problems.

Which needs have people failed to anticipate? What schedule conflicts have they not foreseen? Which ongoing home project might people have lost track of along the way? Should they keep searching for better solutions or consider problems solved?

People need to be satisfied with information, insights & practices to achieve comfortable closure. Even if they know they’ll reopen issues/projects when new information is available or conditions change, people want to be sure they’ve done all they could currently.

After people feel they’ve settled issues, they might believe they’re protected & ignore those issues. When protection isn’t permanent, it’s important to understand what’s possible & determine if preliminary answers can guide people to significant progress.

If the best time for action is unknown, somebody needs to determine whether to risk starting too early or late. Is there enough time to establish full assurance (about best practices) before implementing preventative action?

You can lead people through consultations even if you don’t have all pertinent answers yet, because you can check which questions apply to customers’ conditions.

After finding applicable questions, you can search for answers. With answers about what’s apt to happen & potential results, you can work on options. If customers are comfortable with options, they can commit to using products & methods. That commitment is important, so people don’t give up without allowing enough time for full effects.

During consultations, you can determine what people need for producing & maintaining full results, so customers are assured. Part of assurance is sharing common term definitions because misunderstandings can lead to problems & mistrust.

It’s important to agree what words mean so people can set realistic goals. People might not know they’ve made mistakes when expectations aren’t accurate.

Share the Cognitive Labor

Do some of the heavy mental lifting to streamline processes, optimize results & reduce risks. It takes more than strength for physical lifting; strong lifters also need correct techniques.

Effective, efficient decision-makers know what & how to think. As a retailer & consultant, you should know how to evaluate conditions & know which facts are necessary.

It’s important for you to know the cognitive labor load of processes from identifying vulnerabilities & problems to eliminating or reducing those. Consider which options could make budgeting & financing less stressful.

Marketing can include reminding customers about seasonal preparation or it’s time to check for problems. People will be relieved to outsource that anticipation work to you.

There’s an overwhelming span of problems from potentials to what’s probable plus emerging or current trouble. There’s an overwhelming span of solutions from potentially effective to what’s likely to work & what’s currently working.

Among emerging & current problems, which are threats or nuisances? Can problems be solved, prevented, or just mitigated? If somebody buys unreliable products, there’ll be less money, time & energy to restart with effective resources.

Which efforts can customers do with current resources? If people can’t afford money or storage space for materials or tools, you might need to adjust your business. If products are packaged in bigger amounts than people need, do you justify small purchases? If people need tools for short times & can’t afford money or space for purchases, will you offer rentals?

Help people determine how much of each resource they can afford to invest in for results. If people end up buying tools they’ll use once, their money will be tied up until they sell or trade tools. If you have tool rentals, people can rent what they need & move on.

Thank you for using my blog. Please let me know if I should clarify anything.

Copyright 2021 Dennis S. Vogel All rights reserved.

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