Beware the Sirens of Covid-19

Staying true to your value proposition is always good advice.

As a quick refresher; what is a value proposition?

It is a statement describing the benefits that customers expect to receive from your product or service. This statement should get across the 'why' behind purchasing said another way; If the value proposition was removed then customers would stop giving the company money.

It is possible that Covid-19 has changed your value proposition because it has changed what your customers expect from you or it has changed what your customers see as valuable. Both of these situations are possible but at this time it is important to re-establish what your value proposition is and validate that your customers still see it as valuable.

How do you re-establish your value proposition?

1. Talk to your customers in order to understand their problem as it is today
2. Do/build something that will solve that problem
3. Ask your customers to pay something for it
4. Talk to your customers to double check you understand why they paid for it

You need to be as confident as possible that you know what your value proposition is, this might take one customer call or it might take months either way I assure you it will not be time wasted. 

Your business will survive or die over the coming year based on your ability to (1) stay close to your customers and (2) deliver upon your value proposition.

Beware the Sirens of Covid-19

Opportunity is exciting but do not be led astray by the Sirens of Covid-19. Many businesses are pivoting to stay alive while others are pivoting to capture new markets, some examples are here.

There is a lot of opportunity in pivoting your business to address the needs of people during this time but you need to stay ruthlessly focused; your business has a certain set of skills which you have been leveraging in order to deliver on your value proposition. Do not forget what those skills are, they have not changed. Don't be led into the rocks by thinking you have the skills in logistics to get PPE to the world if you don't, because someone does and you will not win that fight and worse you will waste your skills and resources being inefficient.

Great businesses come out of recessions not by riding the waves of obvious opportunity but by staying close to their customers and delivering on their value proposition.

A good example

 This write up about Karst illustrates this point well

"Karst doesn’t make hand sanitizer, or anything remotely resembling sanitizing products. Their line of notebooks, notepads, sketchbooks, and woodless pencils is stylish and minimalist, made from materials like vegan leather and recycled stone.

But the founders realised what they lacked in expertise, they made up for in manufacturing capabilities. Karst had access to ethanol, the key ingredient in hand sanitizer, and already had warehouses, logistics, shipping, and a digital platform in place to produce a product."