Categoria: Value proposition

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. 

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.

The idea of the benefit is crucial in our conception of the value proposition as it generates the virtuous circle between the functionality of the product/service and the customer need. But it isn’t a pretty new concept …

Leggi tutto “The benefit”

The customer is the person who will pay for the value; better if he/she is willing to pay an upper price to have the product/service from us instead of the competition.

Usually, he/she has a need and to be one of our customers, we should have a benefit from our product/service that addresses that need. This is the promise of our value.

There should be a channel for the transfer of the value, this is the relationship. We can imagine this as the result of a brand or of the job of a salesman: in every case, there must be a trust between us and the customer. The trust is based upon the belief that he/she will obtain the expected value from us and our organization.

 

Value is a commodity word, it is used in so many ways that it is hard to figure out its deep meaning. When we are around a value proposition we can find some elements that can give value to the proposal: newness, performance, customization, «getting things done», design, brand/status, price, cost reduction, risk reduction. I think that looking at our habits as a consumer, we can easily understand why we are attracted from those. The real difficulty is to understand if a product is able to seize something similar.

As for the idea, the first step of the value is inside the designer (the person who is in charge of defining the value, the model and the proposal). We must have passion and a great confidence in our idea and then figure out the characteristics we believe in and sell them to other people.

If we align our thought to a foreign schema we will follow something or somebody and in most of the cases, this is the way to failure. 

The fundamental question is «Who cares?» And then find someone who would spend money with you. If the first person who would spend money on our product/service is me, start from people like us. That’s the schema unawarely used by a lot of successful entrepreneurs. The value starts with the passion, the energy we can put in our idea, in our job: one of the best suggestion for «creating value» is «don’t give up». Everything at the beginning should seem impossible.