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.

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.

Women Forging the Future

I came across the following from Elizabeth Debold, Senior Editor of EnlightenNext magazine in an email promoting a virtual seminar they are holding, and I thought it was worth passing on. In part, it helps explains why I work with women to build Higher Purpose Businesses.

“When every woman learns to listen without fear to the voice inside her instead of smothering it, it may lead - perhaps even more surely than rockets into space—to the next step in human evolution.”

A powerful quote, isn’t it? It’s from an article that Betty Freidan (author and founder of the National Organization for Women) wrote for Good Housekeeping magazine FIFTY years ago - in 1960! She was writing to all of the educated, smart women who found themselves strangely frustrated and dissatisfied with their expected roles of wife and mother - and had no other life options.

Today we can’t say that - educated Western women have more freedom of choice than any women in history. The path of marriage and children that defined women’s identities and fulfilled their essential purpose for thousands of years but is now merely one option among many. 

But the vague sense that something isn’t quite right still persists with so many of us - even though we may have it all or have made powerful choices in our lives, so often we feel that something is still missing and we are still craving a deeper fulfillment.

Interestingly, research shows that as a gender, women are less happy today than their foremothers were before the 1960’s revolution. Whilst they have gained options, they have not necessarily found a new essential purpose that puts wind in their sails, empowering them to reach higher and challenge limits, to evolve who they are, and to become creative agents of lasting change.

Why? In a nutshell: while women have broken through one glass ceiling after another, the new frontier is busting the glass ceilings inside ourselves that trap our spirit, our sense of purpose and our deepest passion for and trust in life.

 Building a Higher Purpose Business is one of the many options open to women (and men!) to help achieve this.

If you are interested in finding out more about the seminar, here is the link: Women Forging the Future—Two Days of Myth Busting, Soul Strengthening, and Ecstatic Liberation (November 13 & 14, 2010) (FYI, I have no affiliation with them other than being a subscriber to the magazine)

The BEST EVER focussing questions you will ever ask yourself

Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’…into the future 

Recently I sent out an email asking people what their top business issues are. I got quite a variety of responses but one issue kept coming up consistently – How can I get more time to do all the things I need to do?

 I wish I had the answer to that one! 

Well actually I do…sort of.

 At first I was tempted to start a discourse about the nature of time, reality, consciousness and “the matrix” – but although fascinating and worthy of discussion – it is a bit beyond the scope of this quick newsletter.

 Instead I decided to give you some “instant pudding” - something that you can use straight away. It is the best (ever) tool I have found to focus your thinking and actions, so that you are getting the best results in line with your vision and with the time you have available.

 I have searched for years and never found more than 168 hours in a week.

 Time can’t be accumulated. You can’t turn it on or off. It can’t be replaced. It has to be spent at the rate of sixty seconds every minute.

 Furthermore, in business today we are expected to produce more with less - better services, quicker response times, more products to market, increased sales, and better value for money. Managers and leaders in particular, are expected not just to plan and prioritise their own work but to be responsible for what their team do.

 And then there is the Catch 22 –

“The harder (or more) I work, the more money I make.

 And the more money I make, the less time I have to enjoy it.”

This is the world that we live in today. The only way out of this loop is to stop being busy and start being productive. And there is a lot that can be done in regard to how we handle the challenges of our time challenged life.

In about 1986 I read a book by Alan Lakein called How to Manage Your Time and Your Life. Why can I remember this so clearly? Because it was from this book that I learned the best time management / time allocation tool I had ever seen – bar none.

Lakein suggested that you should always ask yourself 2 questions:

What is the best use of my time right now?

Is this contributing to my progress?

This literally became my mantra and allowed me to always be working on my highest priorities. In fact, I had them written in every day of my diary (I used paper back then!) so I saw them possibly a hundred times a day. As a result I became incredibly productive and achieved a great deal.

 Over time, as my vision has become broader and more holistic, I have added some key additional questions:

What is the one key thing I will complete today that will move my world forward?

If this is the ONLY thing I get done today, will that make me happy?

Is this serving my highest values?

Is this contributing to my higher purpose?

Am I doing what I want to do, or am I just being busy?

Am I avoiding what I know is important by creating new stuff to do?

These questions have taken me about 20 years to learn (I know, I know - I’m a slow learner!). But, now I use them all day, every day. They are programmed into my phone to remind me (hourly). They are printed out on a sign right above my computer screen.

As a result, I now focus on the things that are meaningful to me and uplift me, rather than responding to other people’s agendas. In other words, I am spending my time the way I want to.

 I know this strategy sounds almost too simple, but why not try it for just one week and see how you go?

 What would you rather be doing? Make a conscious choice now…

By the way, did you recognize the line at the top of this post? It’s from the song “Fly Like An Eagle” by Steve Miller and the Steve Miller Band (1976).  You can check it out here – be warned though – it’s hard to get the song out of your head!

If you like these questions it might also be worth checking out the Business DNA In-Depth How-To Guide on time management here: http://quidditybusiness.com.au/business-dna-in-depth-guides.html

August the 1st is a special day (and not because it is “horses’ birthday”)

August 1st has often provided me with some momentous times, and this year is no exception.

I’m very proud to announce the “official” transition of Solu Plus into Quiddity Business!

Why the change?
The focus of the work undertaken by Solu Plus has gradually shifted over the last 8 years and it felt like the right time to refresh our brand. Lot’s of things have changed in the world in that time, including the way business is done. And when I spoke to my graphic and web designers about what I now do and the need for updating our look, their feedback was that Solu Plus didn’t reflect that. I had to agree, so, after a deep breath and a few tears, I started thinking about a new name to go with the new image.

So what is “Quiddity”?
Quiddity is the quality that makes a thing what it is; the essential nature or essence of a thing - literally its “what-ness” or “what it is”.

Over the years I’ve come to realise that the best way to build your business successfully is to ensure it serves your higher purpose. The key elements of this are the relevant strands of Business DNA. This all comes together under the umbrella of your business’s quiddity.

A new focus - working with creative female entrepreneurs to make it easier
At Quiddity I work extensively with creative female entrepreneurs running small to medium businesses. In particular, women in business who are working too hard for too little return, having problems executing on all of the brilliant ideas they have and are struggling to find the right people for their team and vision.

Now this isn’t an advertisement but, if you aren’t happy with where you are at, then maybe you should have a poke around my new website and see if there is something there that could help you? There are plenty of great resources available at no charge. www.quidditybusiness.com.au

Remember…It’s your business, so you should be building it to suit your goals.