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BACK TO SCHOOL

We have borrowed the name from the consumer market to underline the restart of the business after the summer holidays. 

Let’s wish a happy restart and get ready for the first part of the journey: the qualification process. The purpose of the process is making a choice, as we cannot target everyone or everything: we must choose. The choice is the leader’s job. Nobody else can do it and, in modern organizations, nobody will do that if there isn’t a strong leadership in the organization.

In most sales of marketing departments, there is the belief that the more option they have more sales they will do. It could be, but the majority of business cases we have studied for the book we have got a different information: the power of a winning value proposition is in the passion, in the ability to execute and the most of all, in the ability of an organization to act as an organism. In this case, everybody will do his/her best to achieve the target, but they can have success only is there is a clear target. So the qualification process, at a strategic level, is who could be interested in our value, at the execution level, the process will identify those people in our audience.

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THE JOURNEY IS A VALUE ITSELF

Talking to the customer, sharing a different point of view, understanding the reciprocal way of conducting business: build a relation. This is a part of the value for us and the customer, so we shouldn’t aim to miss steps. I believe that a midterm mental set will get more benefits, in any case.

Sorry, but we have to think to him/her in terms of «potential». This means that huge numbers of ideas come from people as they are for people. It’s so rare for a business model to born in a room with only a personal looking at a whiteboard and trying to suite something for his/her potential customer. It could be a start point, but we have to compare our thoughts with the world.

Sailing in a see of opinions is the real value for a new venture. Don’t miss them, it’s a continuous learning process.

When starting work on a proposition, there are three polar stars that you should always follow, so as not to get off track: simplicity, consistency and prototyping. Simplicity: since we are talking about a promise, this must be easily understandable and measurable. Consistency: our actions must plausibly match the image that we portray. Prototyping: even if we only have something partial, be it a function or the idea of a proposition, we need to find a way to experience it. This is the key point. Never stop looking for feedback and make sure that it comes from every department in the company. Don’t just stop at consultants or management. Managers are trained to make decisions early on and quickly, so they are not always used to the process of analysis or the development of ideas. They are decision-makers, the rational component of a company, as opposed to creatives. Your goal must simply be to develop ideas. 

Make mistakes soon, so you can be successful sooner. 

Testing a proposition is an art, and it should be done in the most rapid and inexpensive way possible, even before you have completed your model. Sometimes, simply exploring the customers’ interest is not a winning move. It’s necessary to discover what they don’t say, what they desire but is unable to express rationally. 

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THE DEFINITION OF BUSINESS MODEL

In our acceptation, a business model is an organization that supports, creates or takes advantage of the value. The value is the sets of benefits the customer is inclined to pay. The mission should be the excellence for delivering that value.

We are aware of the fact that an organization is something very complex, but whiling thinking of an idea we could take a risk making it simple. Business Model Generation from A.Osterwalder is a great example; it can help to put simplicity on a paper.

For example, if we are planning to move your revenue to a recurrent schema you should understand how the cost structure change and when (and if) we will be profitable. Nevertheless, if we do not have value for the customer every business model will fail. 

When we are studying out value proposition is very important having in mind a scheme of thinking that refers to the same model used for the entire organization. We think this is the motivation of the most important link in the business model canvas: the one between «value proposition» and «customer set». In this link, we will find our success and we believe that the link is the Camel Theory itself.

We must know where is the value to the customer or have a story to convince him/her and we should understand how to deliver that value making money for our organization. This is the win-win factor: earning money delivering appreciated value. That will be only if the organization is aligned and the glue is the intrinsic valor of the people.

In companies, those who think up a proposition, from research and development to the marketing departments, are not those who will take it to the market. That will be the sales force’s task. However, everyone must remember that a proposition is a promise that a company makes to its market; so, everyone, without exception, must actively contribute. In order for the company to be successful, the customers must trust it, and to earn this trust, it is necessary to respect the promises that are made.

Everyone must participate in the realization of the promise contained in the proposition. That the flavour of a business model.

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THANK YOU

I just want to thank all of you who have spent the time to comment on «The Pareto Law in business». I’ll take care of your suggests improving the blog. The goal, for me, is making a brainstorm around the concept of the value proposition. I’d make a spur as I strongly believe that the proposal should be a scientific process ruled by something we should understand. The third law of motion shall apply to business too. People simply don’t act moved by coincidence, there is a reason for every choice. 

I noticed that we have troubles when we fall in love with the product too early and we don’t focus enough on the foundation of vision and strategy to make sure it connects to what people want and use. 

Every post aims at that. Thank you again.