Quiddity Higher Purpose Business, help for entrepreneurs, women in business, David Solomon

The Queen is Dead. Long Live the Queen!

No, this isn’t a blog about Madonna, Lady Gaga, or even Michael Jackson or Elvis. This is an article about the humble USP or Unique Selling Proposition.

The original idea of the USP was that each product or service taken to market should have a specific benefit that was unique to it (hence making it as discernibly different from its competitors as possible).

This benefit needed to be a compelling proposition so that it could move many people to buy the product or service. And when done well, this proposition could be captured by a memorable phrase or line. Do you remember these?

When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight – Federal Express
Melts in your mouth, not in your hand – M&M’s
We try harder – Avis
The Fresh Food People – Woolworths

So what is the problem with a USP? Well, there are several, but the most obvious is that a USP only takes into consideration the perspective of the product, service, company, or individual about which it refers. This is soooo 1970’s. More specifically, there is no consideration of the customer’s perspective!

So if the USP is dead, what is the alternative? Well, here are a few to consider:

POD = Point Of Difference
ESP = Emotional Selling Proposition
TSP = Tribal Selling Proposition
CVP = Customer Value Proposition
UVP = Unique Value Proposition
CVP = Compelling Value Proposition
UPV = Unique Perceived Value

CVP - Customer Value Proposition or Compelling Value Proposition is what most people will talk about nowadays (just note the power in those words!)

The key take-away message is that we have moved away from the narcissistic perspective of the USP, to understand that the audience – specifically their desires, their needs, their likes and dislikes – are what we need to be addressing!

You may well have heard of a particular radio station that everybody listens to 24/7. Don’t believe me? It’s radio station WII-FM – which stands for “What’s In It For Me?”

Whenever you communicate with another person – any form of communication – they have this little WII-FM filter that interrupts your message. And if you can’t answer the question to the filter’s satisfaction – you won’t cut through!

This is why I personally prefer UPV – Unique Perceived Value – as it clearly acknowledges that it is the customer’s perception of your unique value – the value they acknowledge when they look through their filters – that is what counts.  
 
Let’s face it, with a few exceptions, most clients don’t care that much about you - other than what you can do for them (WII-FM). What they are interested in is what can you do that will help them win more business, cut their costs, save them time, be more efficient, deliver a better result, provide better service and make more money. They want to know how you can help them with their value
proposition.

And the way to make a Value Proposition compelling? That’s simple.

• Make it real and tangible - not just a memorable line.

• You must believe in it totally, walk the talk and do what you say you stand for.

• It should be a declarative statement of intent, belief, action, and a promise to the customer.

The most important thing is to internalise your Compelling Value Proposition, embrace it, live it, and (if relevant) make sure your staff understand it and are empowered to act accordingly.

And the easiest and most powerful way I know to do this is to ensure that your CVP serves your higher purpose!

If you’d like a copy of my complimentary ebook A Simple Guide to Creating a Compelling Value Proposition please shoot me an email and I’ll be happy to send you a one.

The 2 Hour Work Week

Ask yourself if you had a heart attack and could only work 2 hours a day and needed to make at least the same amount of profit monthly, what would you do?

 If you had a second heart attack and could work only 2 hours per week what would you do then?

There are 3 principal ways you can “create” time:

1)    Get someone to do it for you.
2)    Still do it, but do it as efficiently as possible via technology, systems etc.
3)    Don’t do it at all.

As regards getting someone to do it for you – you shouldn’t be afraid to trade money for time. There are times when it makes more sense to spend money than to do it yourself. Here are three instances:

1)    When you can use your time more profitably. Does it make sense to turn down work paying $300 an hour so you can do something you could hire someone for $30 an hour to do?
2)    When your cost in actual dollars may be less by outsourcing e.g. buying the equipment to print your own manuals versus having it done by a print shop that already has the equipment.
3)    When hiring someone will get better results than if you do it yourself.

And as a bonus, you will probably also find that when you take away some of the tasks that make you less productive, you will enjoy your work even more.

Using technology, systems etc. to become more efficient is really a “no-brainer”. But don’t overlook the idea of not doing something at all. Remember that 80% of your results comes from 20% of the input. So some of that other 80% of input may not be worth doing at all!

The Six P’s

My first exposure to the Six P’s was when I undertook basic training in the Army. It was drilled into us that “Prior Preparation and Planning Prevents Poor Performance”. (Actually I have sanitised that just a bit :).

Being a somewhat optimistic and positive thinking person, I later converted the Six P’s to be “Prior Preparation and Planning Promotes Positive Performance”.

So what’s the point of telling you about this?

Well, we just moved house, and with a family of 5 (all of whom who are hoarders), this was no small undertaking! I wouldn’t say that it was executed with the precision of a military manoeuvre, but without the Six P’s we would have been in big trouble.

And that got me thinking about how it relates to business…

I’m not sure how much of this was propaganda, but I remember being taught in my early business studies about the basic difference between post World War II Japanese and Western manufacturing.

The Japanese would start by planning extensively – for up to 80% of the time available for the project – and then execute - just once - to a very high standard, if not perfectly.

On the other hand, the Western managers would certainly plan – but for much less time (say 20%) – and then execute the plan. And then adjust and re-execute to fix up all the errors.

Cirque du Soleil shows are another interesting example of effectiveness of the Six P’s.

A Cirque show will start with experts (performers, production etc) and even then, still take anywhere from 2 to 4 years to prepare! The artists all undergo artistic and acrobatic training at the Creation Studio where they around twenty trainers from around the world to supervise performer-training programs.

Kà, which opened at the MGM Grand in late 2004 - an extravaganza complete with giant puppets, archers shooting flaming arrows, and the “Wheel of Death” - cost $165 million to stage and was 4 years in the making.

O, a theatre based show performed in the water, took more than 400,000 man-hours of preproduction and production work to prepare, not counting the time spent on the construction of the theatre (and another US$100 million).

My own experiences with performance are similar – years of scales and lessons to get my voice ready, followed by practicing each song literally hundreds of times, before I was ready to perform live on stage or to record.

The Six P’s make it all look effortless, but only if you’ve done the work beforehand.

The same applies to just about any discipline you can name.

Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Bing Crosby all made singing look effortless. So did Margot Fonteyn, Rudolf Nureyev, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers and Gene Kelly when it came to dance.

How easy did Johnny Wilkinson and Andrew Mehrtens make it look to kick a rugby ball accurately? Or these players when they hit a tennis ball? Court, Navratilova, Evert, Goolagong, King and Graf.

My friend Robyn is the fastest typist I have ever seen. She was last measured at over 150 WPM!

Whether you are an accountant who can look at the numbers and see things mere mortals cannot, or a business coach / mentor who can spot the real issue - not just the symptoms, or perhaps a counsellor who knows in the moment just the right question to ask, people look at you in awe and ask “How do you do that?”

How? I’d suggest it is the Six P’s at work.

It is conservatively estimated that it takes 10,000 hours to become “expert” in something. This equates to 250 x 40 hour weeks = 5 years full-time.

Becoming an expert in your field (no matter whether it is law, graphic design, dentistry, sales, importing, investment etc.) has become a prerequisite to firstly survive and then flourish.

So if it takes this long, how can we speed up the process of becoming an expert? 5 years is a long time, especially if you are in the early stages of your business.

The secret is the Six P’s – combined with doing work ON the business.

Yes, I know, we’ve all heard it before. But do we do it?

www.quidditybusiness.com.au  

Two minutes to read, a few more to think

I was recently on a Qantas flight from Sydney to Melbourne. As most of you will know, it isn’t a long trip - only about 90 minutes at most (depending on time of day).

Not wanting to waste the opportunity to think without interruptions, I put my iPod headphones in my ears and started playing some easy listening tracks. As I let my mind wander, I also let my eyes move around the cabin. Some of the images on the cabin TV screen caught my attention.

What I saw was the Qantas general entertainment programme and I (mildly) amused myself by trying to guess the story without listening to the sound. I did notice that the various reports were split into 4 basic categories – business, sport, politics and the arts. The most interesting thing was that about 50% of the reports were on the various Arts.

This grabbed my attention. 

So I looked a little harder…

…and I started to see a very considerable commitment to branding Qantas in alliance with artistic endeavours. I saw links to opera, orchestral music, modern dance, classical dance, literature and choral singing.

So what images did I see around me?  The tagline of “Sharing the Spirit”, the Sydney Dance Company, the Australian Ballet, Cathy Freeman at a book reading, “A Spirit of a Community”, the Australian Girls Choir & National Boys Choir, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Canteen, Pathfinders, and even the onboard magazine On:Q (on cue).

(When I later checked the Qantas website I saw they support no less than 15 artistic organisations, 3 major sporting bodies and over 30 charitable and community organisations.)

I’m not a shareholder, employee, relative of an employee, or a consultant to Qantas – simply a fare-paying passenger. And they don’t know I am writing about them.

So why am I making a song and dance about what they are doing?

Because these are things that are directly linked to the soul or spirit of Qantas’s customers. This is incredibly powerful! In this way they are making an emotional bond with their customers that is almost impossible to break – even I suspect, if planes were to fall from the sky!

They are marketing an experience and an emotion, even if only by association.

How many marketing texts have told us that buying decisions are made with emotion and only backed up by logic?

What emotions were triggered in you when you first heard the “I Still Call Australia Home” commercial sung by those wonderful Australian children? (If by some chance you haven’t seen it, go to http://www.qantas.com.au/travel/airlines/i-still-call-australia-home/global/en)

Is it all just a cynical ploy by some unscrupulous advertising executives within Qantas? I don’t think so. There is far too much that Qantas is doing in their Sharing the Spirit Community Initiatives that demonstrates a real commitment to people, the environment, the arts, indigenous Australians, youth, sport and charity.

I especially like the Spirit of Youth Awards which aim to celebrate and reward young Australian creative talent in film and animation, fashion, industrial and object design, music, photography, visual arts and visual communication.

Very few of us have the deep pockets of Qantas, but we can all do something, according to our means, to make a contribution to our community. And along the way we can also benefit from the emotional connection this will allow us to form with our stakeholders, both internal and external. And this has been demonstrated to have a direct bottom-line benefit.

How transparent are you?

I can’t actually remember when it was I first heard about Cirque de Soleil, but I’m pretty sure I first saw them when they toured Australia with Alegria in about 2001. I also remember thinking as I paid (what felt like a small fortune at the time) for tickets for my family of five “This had better be worth it!”

However, from the moment I spotted the Grand Chapiteau in the distance I knew that my experience would be different from any previous circus - in fact any previous  show – that I had ever been to see.

As we walked down the carefully laid out paths my excitement was palpable and building. My nerve endings were literally tingling as the sound of the music of the show played over the PA system and evocative images surrounded us.
 
As we entered the Grand Chapiteau my breath was taken away at the sheer size of the audience, the magnificence of the stage and all of the rigging. The mood was already established by the lighting and the handful of performers in the audience teasing them with a “prologue” of interaction.

And then the lights went down and the music started…

Just a short time later I was sitting in one of the front sections, about 3 rows back, with my mouth open and my heart singing. I was completely entranced and captivated, lost in the emotion and the experience, and frankly, oblivious to the rest of the world. I sat there literally hugging myself in delight at what was unfolding in front of me. My imagination had been captured…

It was right there and then that I first saw why “show business” had 2 words – there was the show, and there was the business.

After the show, as we walked down the carefully laid out path through the  merchandise section where some of the performers where signing autographs, I also had the insight you have heard me pronounce many times since - that every performance is a business, and of course, every business is a performance.

Recently I watched a documentary about the making of Corteo – Cirque Du Soleil’s 15th show. And it struck me as I watched the doco, that even though they were opening the curtains and letting me peek behind them into the show - to see the awkward beginnings, the things that didn’t work, the difficulties they had, the personality conflicts, the  individual frailties, the temper tantrums, the long slow process of building and pulling it all together, and even the technical failure during
the premiere that led to a 45 minute delay in the middle of the performance – I didn’t feel any less warm about them. In fact, I felt even closer, as if I had become part of their fraternity.

How much is this in contrast with “regular” business practice? I mean, we can’t let our clients see our secrets or our weaknesses can we? How would they feel about us if they knew we weren’t perfect?

When I was in executive search I remember the Managing Partner of the firm saying to me that we had to maintain the secrecy of what we did – that we couldn’t let our clients see what was inside our executive search “black box”. If we did, and they saw what we did and how we did it, the mystery would go and we couldn’t charge our high fees.

Really? Surely the skill and discretion applied to the activity is what is paramount, as well as the results.

I remember as a child watching a donut machine in operation. I saw the dough being mixed, the donut being squeezed out into the hot oil, flipped over mid-way to ensure even cooking, then removed from the oil and sent along a conveyer for dusting with sugar. Even though all of this was done automatically, I didn’t feel that the value of the donut was diminished and I was happy to buy one.

What is there to lose by being open rather than secretive? I believe that by pulling back the curtain to your business, by giving your clients and prospective clients more information about what you do, by engaging them in your processes, that you have a lot more to gain than to lose.

At the very least it will help your relationship with your clients. And that can’t be a bad thing, can it?