My Value, My Product

Making money requires trading something of value for currency (at least legally…).As individuals, that value comes from us, in the form of our time, labor, talents, thoughts or resources. As organizations, that value comes from products or services that require cooperative efforts to provide. Whether looking for employment, or employing thousands, the importance of distilling the value we create is foundational to the success we build on it. 

I use the word distill because discovering the true value of something to others isn’t clear or easy. A lot of feedback is gained; support, criticism, analytics and even indifference all contain clues as to what others like or don’t like about how they perceive or engage with this value. To understand the specific value of our “product”, we must extract meaning from feedback that’s deeper than the surface, and follow through to the roots that connect them. 

I’ve previously written on how the customer’s experience with the “product” must align with the story they believed about it in the sales process to create a great experience. This means not only having a product that does what is promised, but is sold to customers who have the need and ability to use it appropriately. In this article, we’ll explore distilling that value. 

Most of my career experience is being directly employed, with a smaller portion consulting in small businesses. To help explain the distillation process, both as a worker and employer, I’ll use examples within my own life. No doubt your path is different from mine, but contains struggles we share. 

I initially resisted the idea of maximizing my “value” as an employee. Like most youth, I felt stripped of my individuality. The things I cared about, or even took pride in, were unimportant compared to the money I could generate. Having graduated between the dot-com bubble burst and 9/11, and grown up on Office Space and Fight Club, it was really difficult to think of myself as a product in the economy. The struggle to understand that our society is best served when each of us is maximizing returns on the value we add took far too long. 

Throughout my 20s, I worked hard and harder, with no understanding of my real value. My job became part of my identity in life. Before social media, we had business cards - and getting to a place in my career where my name was on a card instead of my shirt was my only goal. During this time, I received a lot of awards for my results, a lot of feedback on my performance, and a lot of data that showed correlations between my actions and my results. 

Kudos and awards felt good, and were motivating, but didn’t help me improve in any way other than to beat the competition (who were also my peers). Criticism felt bad in comparison, some even unfair, but if I wanted to find the essence of what I do best, and become the best version of that, I had to understand what others were experiencing in the full spectrum of my engagement. 

I hadn’t just improved revenue, quality, and cost of sales figures, I’d also dismantled systems, reset expectations and frustrated people. In my mind, the results had been speaking for themselves. Those who couldn’t get onboard with continuous improvement, especially when the requests were reasonable and the results were measurable, didn’t get much consideration or empathy from me. I felt like most of my criticism was coming from this group, and only had the maturity to reflect on the validity of my shortcomings after becoming a father. 

As I thought back on my experience, and all of the feedback and data I’d accumulated, some commonalities became clear. I realized that my achievements stemmed from unique insights about how things worked versus how we commonly perceived them. “I hadn’t thought of that before” was a common response to my coaching.  I also recognized my callousness for what I deemed unproductive and my lack of awareness that the systems and expectations I was disrupting not only involved people, but were tied to their identity. I was frustrating the story they’d come to appreciate. 

It wasn’t until my early 30s that I took intentional action in my career. While I’d learned a lot in the previous decade, it was the deeper truths I extracted from the experience that gave me the clarity and confidence to achieve more of my potential. I sought opportunities where my positive contributions could be applied and appreciated, but with greater awareness of my shortcomings.

I worked even longer hours, but not as hard as before. My focus changed. More hours were spent learning than doing, as I educated myself in specific methodologies and concepts that accentuated my natural strengths and made me more aware of how to improve upon my shortcomings. I challenged myself to remain quick in thought, but slower in action or words; I learned how to respond rather than react. 

As my experience and confidence exposed me to higher-impact positions, I found employers that were willing to give me the space to be me, imperfect as I was, because of the positive difference I made in the organization. As I learned new ideas, I had the opportunity to practice them in reality and learn how, why and when they work in a business. Not all were winning ideas, but the ability to test them and learn from the results made our organizations stronger. 

Along this path, I began to understand my value more clearly. If I traded my labor for a wage, my value was based on what others could be paid to do the same job. When I was able to bring value based on my ideas and more specific skills to the market, my value increased to employers. 

In my 40s, I’ve had more and more opportunities to provide guidance to those who are going through experiences I’ve shared. I’ve distilled my own specific value: helping small businesses mature beyond their founders and owners for stability, growth, succession or sale. Those that have been following me this year are sharing in my journey to bring what I’ve learned to an even larger audience that can benefit. I’ve appreciated experiencing how maximizing my own value by helping others in this way improves many lives. Thank you. 

As I grow from being a “product” to having one, the process that made me of greater value can also make my product greater. I’ll get kudos and criticism. Like with myself and my career, I have to accept both to understand how my own strategic business methodology can be improved, and how I can find the people who need and have the ability to use this tool. 

All it takes is one “I hadn’t thought of that before” moment to create dramatic change. Many are only one such conversation away from their break-through moment and I really want to inspire those conversations to happen. 

As critical parts of the distillation process, I:

• Clarified the intended value of my product
• Observed how systems operated and learned what they intended to produce
• Analyzed hard data for differences between intended and measured results. Data illuminates unseen patterns and trends in what actually happened.  Avoiding bias in yourself, your product or business means accepting truths that are sometimes harsh. Obscuring flaws protects them and passes them on to the future. Letting data tell an objective story about performance and results can generate valuable insights that help you deal with problems directly.
• Listened to critical feedback, particularly from target customers and users. My critics made me improve, and they can improve my product as well. We don’t have to take criticism personally, but understanding what motivates it can illuminate unintended friction in the buyer’s journey. 
• Evaluated my product and the customer experience to improve continuity between the story customers experience versus the one they expect.

It can be complex, but no special genius is necessary to gain insight into how to improve a product. We’ve all played “if I were in charge…” with others’ products, and are willing to share our opinions on most things. Those with the uncommon ability to turn that on themselves in a productive way, to ideate on how to be better, have the ultimate advantage in the marketplace. 

An insight-generating question I’m particularly fond of is “What would a savvy competitor do to beat your product in the market?”  Job seekers are often asked why they’re the best candidate and companies are asked the same about their products. If you can think of a better answer than the one you’re giving today, taking action before your competition does to make that change can dramatically improve your marketplace position. 

Once you know precisely the value you bring to the market, you can know more precisely what value it has in the marketplace - and knowing is half the battle.