What is VALUE?

I think we're getting "value" all wrong...

I've heard it said that value is the difference between the perceived price (oh, nice shoes. They're probably like $89.) and the actual price (WOW! They're actually only $49... what a steal!).

I've also heard it said that your value is based on the difficulty of the problem you solve for people. Surgeons can make a truckload of money because saving someone's life is extremely difficult and requires an exceptional level of expertise.

And I've also experienced how, sometimes, value is delivered in the form of surprise and delight. Something you didn't know you needed and wouldn't have asked for.

A beautiful painting doesn't necessarily solve a pressing problem, but it does add beauty to our lives. And for many people, the value of the painting lies not in the difference between the anticipated price and actual price, but in the fact that it's overpriced. They take pride in buying the most expensive, the rarest, or the most sought-after.

It's not an easy thing to give value a single definition.

Over the last month, I've interviewed seven of our best clients at Power Selling Pros. The way I describe Power Selling Pros to outsiders is this:

You know when you call an AC company and the call starts with "this call may be recorded for quality assurance?" We're quality assurance coaching. We coach the people who answer the phones for these companies to WOW the customer and book the job. We play their recorded calls with them the same way a professional athlete will replay their film, and we practice difficult conversations with them.

My goal in interviewing these clients was two-fold:

1) Get clarity on the single most valuable benefit PSP delivers

2) Create some great marketing collateral using our clients' own experiences

I assumed that the most valuable benefit we give our clients would be that their call-takers now book more jobs. After all, if you're spending lots of money to get your phones ringing, it pays to train the people answering those phones to actually sell the job.

(NOTE: Yes, seven might be a small sample, but these are seven of our best clients. Their opinions matter.)

I started each conversation with the same question: how has working with Power Selling Pros changed your business? In all seven cases, teaching their call-takers to book more jobs was secondary to other more ambiguous benefits. And this absolutely rocked my world.

What People Really Value

This rocked my world because booking more jobs is objective. You can look at the numbers and prove it. You can see it on the bottom line! Why would that not be the primary benefit?

It turns out the thing our best clients value most is that their call-takers are now aligned around a consistent customer service message. They can trust the customer will be WOW'ed no matter who they're talking to.

Second to that is the fact that because we are coaching their team, they don't have to. The stressful job of quality assurance is no longer on their plate.

After that, we got into the more measurable benefits. But even those differed in value from client to client. Some placed high value on the fact that they book 90% of their calls into jobs now, some are barely even tracking their numbers, and others take more pride in the confidence they hear their call-takers demonstrating than anything else.

The only thing that was truly consistent is that their team is now aligned around a consistent customer service message.

What This Teaches Us About Value

You are not your customer.

Often when we're coaching people, they'll tell us "oh, that'll never work... I don't like how that sounds... that feels silly to me." And our response is always the same: you are not your customer.

They don't feel how you feel. They don't like what you like. And they don't think how you think.

Each of them has their own way of making connections, experiencing the world, and searching for a place to belong. It's when you realize this that you can finally let go of your desire to be right and instead focus on what is right in any given moment.

As a marketer, this is outrageous.

Donald Miller told me I need a pristine one-liner that encapsulates how my business serves people. And yet, my customers are telling me that they each find value in something different. And if that's what I got from seven of them, imagine what I'd find talking to all 300 of them.

We're told not to focus on what we do but instead on what it does for others, but maybe, just maybe, that's wrong. Maybe when we simply say what we do, people are smart enough to imagine what that will mean for them individually.

Think about it:

Does Sriracha sauce have a one-liner?

How about Apple?

Does your mortgage company have a one-liner?

I doubt it... and yet, we give these brands staggering amounts of cash.

(NOTE: I'm not opposed to one-liners... just trying to make a point that the one-line is not the end-all-be-all of marketing.)

Maybe instead of boxing ourselves into neat little packages with very specific benefits, we should get better at telling stories that inspire people to see how we fit into their unique lives.

If you were to ask me how my iPhone adds value into my life, you're not going to get a pretty one-liner. You're more likely to get something like "I don't know... it's an iPhone. It's super dope."

The Real Definition of Value

Value is the experience people wish for when they take action.

Or, perhaps, it's productized empathy.

When a couple goes to Disneyland, they wish for the magic of being together, of being free, and doing everything on the map. When parents take their kids, they want the feeling they get when their child's face lights up with joy like a Christmas tree.

Sometimes it's the price, sometimes it's the difficulty of the job to be done, sometimes it's for no other reason than to explore their curiosity.

What's left for us is to "step into their shoes" and imagine what's most valuable for them, right now.