How businesses can prosper in an ever changing world

A mindshift needs to happen for a business to remain prosperous in the long term. Most businesses

are created to make money and this seems to be the sole driver. Businesses need to shift their focus

from the main driver of money to “added value” otherwise their long term strategy is not

significantly flexible enough to adapt to any future changes.

Value in essence is what a customer pays for, whether that is in the form of a service or product. The

more value your business can offer the more money you will make. Money is essentially

transference of value based on the perception of the value relative to the entity that created the

value and the recipient of the value.

The concept of money needs to change from just money itself to the value it represents to your

customer.

This is a very simplistic yet powerful mindshift of a business owner, to move to a more customer

value centric business model than a business model purely based on monetary gain.

By driving your business strategy based on value gives your business a greater scope adaptability in

the future and not base your business on temporary money making objectives but on long term

stability by providing the most value you can.

When businesses stop adding value they die. So focus must always be on “value” and not on money.

Examples of businesses or jobs that have died because they offer no value:

Lift operator: This job has now become redundant because people can now operate the lifts

themselves and the value once offered by a lift operator no longer exists.

ICE delivery: Before the age of fridges businesses existed solely on the basis of delivering ice

to businesses and individuals. That job has now disappeared because people and businesses

now have the ability to produce their own ice.

Some business exists to offer value based on temporary opportunities

No doubt business can make money by taking advantages of temporary opportunities that may be

created in the market. Some businesses exclusively exist to take advantages of these opportunities.

But what happens when the opportunity doesn’t exist anymore?

The business will need to fold and another business set up to take advantage of another opportunity

in the market.

There is no long term growth for businesses based on temporary changes of business conditions

unless the change is relatively permanent. Many businesses have been built up to exploit certain

gaps in the market and have flourished. Sometimes these gaps are filled by innovative new ideas like

the Dyson bagless vacuum, created a new market even though at the time the normal vacuum

cleaners on the market was capable of delivering the value needed by their customers.

The first question a business should ask?

Businesses should ask themselves what value am I adding?

If you cannot define the value you are adding then your platform for growth is not long term and is

based on temporary opportunities and when the temporary opportunity no longer exists, your

business no longer exists

Most business exists to solve a problem or solve problems.

To ensure long term stability a business should ask. Is the problem they are providing solutions for

long term as well?

If the problem is long term then business growth becomes more sustainable because it is based on a

stable platform.

Examples of long term problems

Accounting: All business requires publishing a set of accounts by legal mandate. This makes

this a long term problem. So businesses based on providing accounting solutions to

companies or individuals will be based on a stable problem that all business by law requires

accounting.

Cars: Most people either want or need a car.

Shifting value within value

Value is based on two things:

The state of the economy

The needs of a customer

The state of the economy can change the value of the needs of a customer. Take for example cars, if

the economy takes a downturn then peoples values of what it means to have a car changes e.g.

People tend not to buy new cars and look at ways to extend the life of their existing cars

People tend to buy cars that are more economical

By looking at the changes of value of the customer needs a business can adapt by providing more

economical cars and/or provide mechanical services to help customers get more out of their existing

cars.

How to deliver value in different ways

Businesses should always be looking at how to add more value to their customers needs in different

ways. We already looked at how this can be done in the car example by providing mechanical

services. Other examples of adding value in different ways:

Coffee shops: Can offer to sell newspapers while their customers sip their coffee or tea they

can read their favourite newspaper. They can also offer a Wi-Fi hot spot so that people can

surf the net or even do their work while sitting at the coffee shop.

Florists: As well as offering flowers they can offer cards e.g. birthday cards, wedding cards

etc

This can be looked at as diversifying the value that you are offering to your customers but that value

is closely related to the prime value that you are offering.

Differentiate or die

If business don’t differentiate themselves from other businesses then they will only make a

mediocre income.

Differentiation comes from the differentiating the value your business is offering. Ask yourself the

question:

Why should people come and buy from me instead of my competitor?

There needs to be something different and unique about the service or product you are offering.

This is sometimes defined as a USP or unique selling proposition.

If you don’t define your business USP then you risk the chance, due to a fluctuating economy that

your business will be shut down because you are competing with so many other people that are

offering the same value.

Ways you can differentiate your business and make it unique and offer more value

You can offer additional services as part of your main service or change the way you deliver the

value of how you support the value post sales. Examples:

Offer impeccable customer service. Most businesses don’t offer good post sales support and

this could be an area to provide a USP.

Unique background can be your USP: for example if you are a B2B copywriter that

specialises in providing marketing for software companies, your unique offering could be

that you have 20 years of experience working in a software house providing support to the

sales process.

Offer something free as part of your service: Some jewellery companies offers a relatively

inexpensive gift for their customers to entice them to come and pick it up from their stores.

I hope you found this article of value to you and would be interested in hearing your thoughts on

businesses can prosper in the future. Thanks

Nash Rahman – Freelance Writer|Blogger|SEO Copywriter “Helping Your Business To Grow and Profit”

Contact: Nash.Rahman@gmail.com