How to Uncover Your Greatest Value
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The people you serve determine the value you bring.
The owners of a growing company didn’t appreciate the greatest value they brought their customers. Surprisingly, it wasn’t their products and services.
Their best customers said:
- They understand us and our business.
- They take the time to understand the way we do things.
- I want to hear their recommendations because I feel like they understand us.
- I know I can trust them because they didn’t try to sell me the most expensive product.
The owners didn’t realize:
I asked the owners to predict what customers said when I asked about their greatest value. They couldn’t predict it. When I told them the first thing their customers said was, “I feel like they understand our business.” A light came on.
They thought they were delivering products and services.
More importantly, they were making people feel understood.
Permission to play and beyond:
Great products and services are permission to play. It doesn’t matter how well you understand your customers if you deliver lousy products.
What happens beyond permission to play matters most.
Point of success:
Your point of success goes beyond products and services. Success is always about unexpected value; never what you get, always what you give.
Power of clarity:
Benefits of understanding your greatest value:
- Affirming what you do right. You may not realize your greatest value because you do it unconsciously.
- Developing skills that enhance your ability to deliver your greatest value. The company I dealt with more fully appreciates the power of curiosity and compassion. Something they already possessed but now can enhance.
- Hiring criteria. Hire people who deliver your greatest value.
- Stopping behaviors that diminish your greatest value.
You may not realize your greatest value as an organization or individual. The people you serve know.
How have you been surprised at the value you brought others?
How has knowing your greatest value changed the way you lead?
Dear Dan,
I appreciate your point about feeling understood. It is actually true and perhaps the first point in creating values. So, the point is – Can best product and services create impact or deliver real values? I believe without making good and nurturing relationship, values creation could be difficult. I agree to your point that leaders/organizations greatest value is not what you posses, but what others perceive. Values creation leads to values publicity and values maximization, but creation starts from leaders or organizations. It is not about what you want to deliver but what others want you to deliver.
When I came to know my greatest values. i.e. integrity, authenticity and leading beyond limitation, my confidence and morale was ballooned and this helped to reflect through my approaches, actions and teaching. Others felt it very well. they appreciated my values, vigor, veracity and humility. The most important values that I discovered till date is – the more I learned the more I felt that less I learned and in the process I learned humility.
As always, thank you for adding value Ajay.
You bring clarity to a key point… when we know our greatest value it enhances our confidence….confidence to bring value.
Success is… never what you get, always what you give. Thanks for this little nugget, Dan, just what I needed to hear today 🙂
Thanks Vanessa. Here’s to a great week.
Moving beyond the initial surprise of being understood/valued creates a new weave; a tapestry of energy, of motivation, of celebration, of determination and of increased awareness of shared responsibility and commitment.
And of course, there can also be that downside of getting all wrapped up in yourself in your warm fuzzy blanket and staying just where you are which eventually frays the fabric.
Thank you Doc. You point out one of the huge benefits of making customers feel understood. They love you. They are committed to your success.
Not only has it changed the way I lead, knowing my greatest value has changed the way I operate my business. The clarity and planning I provide for my clients I emulate more and more in my business, refining my model so that I can guide them more and provide even more value.
Dan:
This is insightful and I enjoy your thoughts. You raise a great point about asking and actually listening to the responses. The customer voice is certainly important. We use a process called a “narrative audit” to help get perspectives internal to the organization. The resulting insight is often an unconscious “greatest talent” and more often unconscious “valuable problem” that has become pervasive.
I will watch this space because I think it is an emerging area of understanding how to change things.
Thanks,
Chris Irwin