Category Archives for "Purpose"

How Your Offer Provides Access to Other Services

Last time, I suggested coaches might offer style advice as an extra.  If this includes meeting with a style coach, it’s an example of how a coach provides access to other services.

What is It?

Coaches and other business people open doors to additional support, as a step towards collaboration between businesses.  Here are three types of support.

Collaboration delivering an offer.  A business that offers businesses outdoor pursuits as an opportunity for team building or strategic planning needs experts to supervise outdoor pursuits and business coaches.  One or the other is likely to be brought in.

Another approach is to offer bonuses.  These may be optional or integral but not strictly part of the offer.  They are something the client takes advantage of if they choose.

For example, as part of my coaching, I might offer a free session with a style coach.  I can approach this as optional.  Or I can suggest this is important and so make it integral to my offer.  If the client refuses, it is unlikely to have a major impact on the overall success of the package.

Finally, you can have contacts on your books and offer to set up meetings.

Value to the Client

The value is potentially three-fold:

The specialist gains by perhaps finding a new client themselves.

How to Get There

This is an unsung aspect of networking.  If you make contact with people offering suitable services, build a database of likely contacts.  These people may offer additional services to your clients.

Two things to consider.  One is the quality of their services.  Should you offer to put your client in touch with someone, if you do not know the quality of their services?  If you have not used them before, explain this to the client and suggest they report back to you about how it goes.  It might be possible to approach the third-party together.

As an advocate can you negotiate a good deal for your client?  Most coaches offer a free first session.  What does the third-party provider normally offer and are they willing to offer a bit more?  Also, is a discount on normal prices possible?  Clients are often reluctant to ask on their own behalf and if you do it for them, it adds value to your offer.

Your Offer

Ideally, you want three happy people if you do this as part of your offer.  You, your client and the third-party should all benefit.  Building a portfolio of good referrals can be really helpful.

And remember, if you add clients to your list of trusted providers they have another reason to value your service.

This is the seventeenth of 31 posts about elements of value.  Make sure you don’t miss any by signing up for the offer below.  The posts in this sequence can be accessed below:

+ 13 more

How to Find Entertainment in Your Offer

Beware the f-word!  It’s odd how rarely fun or entertainment features as part of an offer despite frequent references to fun in business circles.

What is It?

Perhaps for some people, fun diverts from serious matters.  Whether a welcome diversion or to be avoided at all costs, fun is definitely secondary.

However, to claim something serious is fun or entertaining in some way attracts more people.  They don’t want to be bored and no matter how important the topic, to make it palatable is no bad thing.

Fun or entertainment has intrinsic value.  It’s an opportunity to take a break, try something new and relax.  Done with others it enhances relationships and perhaps defuses antagonism.

Value to the Client

Fun may be memorable.  To what extent does fun, where it engages attention, help people remember important stuff?

Getting away from the familiar helps strategic planning or team building.  Sometimes when we engage with the unfamiliar, we find new insights spontaneously come to our attention.  Fun has utility.

So, fun helps us to

How to Get There

For coaches fun may be a means to an end.  It is rarely an end in itself.  If clients enjoy coaching sessions or training, they are likely to benefit more and return for more.

How do you market the fun element; convey fun without undermining seriousness of purpose?

Some things are enjoyable without being fun.  For example, a therapeutic massage may be enjoyed but we would not describe it as fun.  Clients might enjoy learning a new skill through hard work.

Your Offer

Most important is benefits to the client.  If you promise they’ll enjoy picking up benefits, all well and good.  Ask for testimonials that say they enjoyed working with you or even had fun.

This is the fifteenth of 31 posts about elements of value.  Make sure you don’t miss any by signing up for the offer below.  The posts in this sequence can be accessed below:

How to Market Therapeutic Value

In my last post about Elements of Value, I described the value of well-being.  Perhaps a more obvious value is where health–related offers have therapeutic value.

What is It?

The focus here is not so much the value of well-being in support of other activities, as curing or relieving medical conditions.

Therapy should be provided by trained medical practitioners.  Many work independently of the health service.  For example, someone using massage to treat sports injury can practice independently.  If you pay for treatment privately, it is reasonable to ask about qualifications and accountability.

So, this heading covers a multitude of alternative therapies, eg hypnosis or homeopathy.

Sometimes therapy and well-being are closely related.  Stress coaching includes aspects of well-being, eg resilience coaching but can be therapeutic for acute stress.

Many products are therapeutic, eg clothing, food and drink, prosthetics, various aids.

Value to the Client

This is fairly straightforward.  Cure of acute conditions, eg sports injuries and mitigation of chronic conditions.

Remember there are other benefits.  Mitigation of a chronic condition has a major impact on the client’s comfort, relationships, effectiveness and prowess.  The value can be far greater than immediate relief of pain or disfigurement.

How to Get There

Probably a more important aspect of this element of value is providing evidence you are qualified to treat the condition.  Show you are qualified, accountable and effective:

Similar questions apply for products.

Your Offer

Remember to focus on the benefits of using your service.  Chronic conditions can last for years and people become accustomed to them.  What are the benefits of taking up your offer?

It is worth focusing on a single condition so prospects who search for you see clearly you have helped people with the same condition.  Sell the benefits and not the service.  If I have heard hypnotherapy helps people give up smoking, when I see the word I may not associate it with weight loss.  So, to engage my interest tell me what you treat and not so much about how you do it!

This is the fourteenth of 31 posts about elements of value.  Make sure you don’t miss any by signing up for the offer below.  The posts in this sequence can be accessed below:

Marketing Physical and Mental Well-Being

Physical and mental well-being is important and integrates into a range of packages.

What is It?

Some offers are primarily about well-being, whilst other packages integrate with aspects of well-being.

For example, a health practitioner offers outdoor activities to businesses for team building and strategic planning. This business moves from health to business services.  The offer combines business objectives with an opportunity to enjoy the outdoors, learn new skills and experience something other than sitting at a desk.

Other coaches offer walking days or half-days to their clients.  Walking improves physical health and it is an opportunity to reflect at a deep level.

Here are a few well-being related things businesses offer clients:

Value for the Client

Where someone is stuck, health can be a reason.  Chronic conditions creep up on people, particularly where they spend a lot of time sitting.

To take part in healthy activity is not just an adjunct to the serious business in hand.  Go out of the office, sit in a training session and apart from the walls, little is different.

Physical exercise helps reach for insights that do not come to someone following their daily routine.  In other words, physical activities are not just enjoyable, they are the point.  Many people can’t solve their problems because they don’t keep themselves healthy!

How to Get There

Many people understand this and seek offers that incorporate healthy activity.  Others are not so keen.  So, understand the connections between health and problem solving and show how your activities help clients meet their goals, whatever they are.

Your Offer

Be clear about what you offer.  It might be some aspect of physical and mental well-being.  On the other hand, you may use the same methods as a part of coaching to solve apparently unrelated problem.

This is the thirteenth of 31 posts about elements of value.  Make sure you don’t miss any by signing up for the offer below.  The posts in this sequence can be accessed below:

How Badge Value Conveys Status

Status is why prospects accept or refuse your offer.  The problem is, for most offers, it is not obvious to third parties the customer has experienced the offer.  Perhaps they need something with badge value.

What is It?

Some years ago a colleague, who was a development worker in a neighbouring town, organised a community garden.  People in the town volunteered to help build the garden.  They included children.  So, my colleague designed certificates for the children.  She was nonplussed when the adults complained they had not received a certificate.

The certificate showed they helped.  They had no other evidence of their involvement and they had bought into the value of the project.

Branding has badge value.  There is something about designer clothing those in the know recognise.  The problem is how do you show you have done something if it is not visible?

You go on a course and receive a certificate but perhaps a badge you can add to a website helps?  Or with a client from a well-known business or organisation, can you show their logo on your website?

Testimonials and blurbs have badge value.  The fact they are there is effective, even if people don’t read them.

Value for the Client

There are two things to consider here.  Do you need a badge to offer clients to show they have completed your coaching or consultancy?  This can double as a promotional tool.

Or you may help your client find the badge they need to promote their business.

How to Get There

There are many types of badge and your particular circumstances help you choose which is best.

• The badge may be integral to your offer, eg a hairstyle.
• Designer labels
• Actual badges to pin on clothing
• Certificates
• Articles in printed media, which can be used to promote your business, eg in a restaurant window
• Badges on websites and social media
• Logos and designs
• Carrier bags are perhaps no longer a good ideas but bags for life can show allegiance to a particular store or supplier.
• Group photos can be circulated on social media.

Your Offer

Bear in mind a badge for your customers may serve as publicity for your business.  Also, some customers may not want a badge, eg customers being coached for some reason they find embarrassing.

So, ask permission where the badge is not integral to your offer.  Where customers experience embarrassment, try suggesting they help others by “paying it forward”.

Offer something customers are proud to be a part of so that wearing the badge is a genuine increase on status.

This is the twelfth of 31 posts about elements of value.  Make sure you don’t miss any by signing up for the offer below.  The posts in this sequence can be accessed below:

• Social impact: Self-transcendence
• Life Changing: Provide Hope, Self-Actualisation, Motivation, Heirloom, Affiliation and Belonging
• Emotional: Reduces Anxiety, Rewards Me, Nostalgia, Design / Aesthetics, Badge Value

Next:  Wellness + 4 more

• Functional: 14

Design or Aesthetics?

It is easy to think design and aesthetics are the same, indeed Bain implies as much.  I think it’s important to distinguish between them.  You need to understand which you are talking about: design or aesthetics?

What are They?

Design and aesthetics occupy opposite dimensions of effectiveness and creativity.

Design should answer the question: does this do what it is designed to do efficiently and effectively?  The question is primarily functional.    If it doesn’t then it is not well-designed.

Aesthetics appreciates the beauty of the solution.  Does it look good?  Trousers serve many purposes, eg they cover the body, protect it from injury or cold.  They can also look smart or beautiful.

Here’s the deal: design and aesthetics support each other.  This is not an absolute, they don’t always.

An effective website does not have to look good.  Usually it is better if it looks good but it is not essential.  Furthermore, it does not have to look good to everyone.  Different groups have different aesthetics.

Value for the Client

To design something effective requires creativity.  The best designs look good and there is something satisfying when a well-designed solution is beautiful.  Aesthetics sell but only up to a point.  If the underlying design is poor, the product is discredited, however good it looks.

Aesthetics are packaging but they can be more than that.  Think of slimline TV screens.  Televisions used to be huge and heavy.  At the time they seemed to be the height of technological sophistication.  Now no-one would contemplate having one in their living room.  Modern TV screens do look better and take up less space.

We did not mind the old style because most of us did not think about what a TV screen might be.  That is the job of the designer who seeks something effective and aesthetically pleasing.

How to Get There

Design principles apply as much to services as they do to products.  A well-designed service delivers its promise on time.  Aesthetics apply to the marketing of the service, sometimes the right image is not easy to find.

If you are a designer, then delivering an attractive product that works is your brief.  But coaches must help their clients understand design principles for their product or service.

Whether as a prelude to employing a designer or something the client does themselves; the client must understand the principles beneath their design and aesthetics.

None of this is easy but done well, it is effective.

Your Offer

So, designer or coach conveys why understanding what is good design and good aesthetics is important.  To engage a designer you must define what you want from them.  Work in partnership with the designer, if you want something that works.

Your offer may be to help with briefing a designer through deeper understanding of your client’s offer.

This is the eleventh of 31 posts about elements of value.  Make sure you don’t miss any by signing up for the offer below.  The posts in this sequence can be accessed below:

• Social impact: Self-transcendence
• Life Changing: Provide Hope, Self-Actualisation, Motivation, Heirloom, Affiliation and Belonging
• Emotional: Reduces Anxiety, Rewards Me, Nostalgia, Design / Aesthetics

Next:  Badge Value

+ 5 more

• Functional: 14

Nostalgia: Remembering the Past

Nostalgia does not have a good reputation.  Many people see it as sentimental, harking back to a golden era that never existed.  So, how can it be an element of  value?

What is It?

Usually people think of nostalgia as longing for things past.  It is a pursuit for older people who remember happier times.  Some industries trade on such longings.

There is a sense that nostalgia is somehow misleading, viewing the past through rose-tinted spectacles.  We like to think things were better once and the modern world is going to the dogs.  I don’t encourage this.  It may be legitimate to run 60s discos or tea dances but it seems to me a dead-end.

But perhaps there is a place for nostalgia in the world of design.  Many tools and other artefacts evolved because they were effective.  It’s a fine line between evolving effectiveness and locking in poor design principles because people like them.

Value for the Client

Perhaps the best present I ever bought was for a friend interested in the Bloomsbury Group, a group of artists post-WW1.  I found a single volume in a second-hand bookshop of photos of members of the group.  My friend was delighted, he had no idea such a book existed.

Perhaps there are principles that look to the past and learn from what worked.  There is a something pleasurable in handling something well-made to a traditional design.

Such designs are collectible and many have an interesting story.  Such objects sit somewhere between a work of art and practical application.

Look at it this way.  If you go back far enough, nostalgia no longer applies.  Appreciation of an object for what it is, even if it is a copy, can enrich life.  Comparisons with modern design can bring new insights.

How to Get There

This is a specialist area.  If you market the past, you must understand it.  Know the stories, be clear about what an artefact is and what a copy is.

Be clear about why you market something that looks backwards.  Why should anyone care?  What exactly do you sell?

Your Offer

If you take inspiration from the past, be up-front about its relevance to the present.  Show how the past enriches the present.

This is the tenth of 31 posts about elements of value.  Make sure you don’t miss any by signing up for the offer below.  The posts in this sequence can be accessed below:

• Social impact: Self-transcendence
• Life Changing: Provide Hope, Self-Actualisation, Motivation, Heirloom, Affiliation and Belonging
• Emotional: Reduces Anxiety, Rewards Me, Nostalgia

Next:  Design / Aesthetics + 6 more

• Functional 14

Generosity and Rewards for Clients

Rewards Me is the second of Bain’s Emotional Elements of Value.  I’ve no idea why “Me” but his point is clearly rewards for clients.

What is it?

Most readers have visited a Farmers’ Market.  You are familiar with a little saucer of free samples.  Maybe cubes of bread to dip in oil or chutney, perhaps cubes of cheese or even a small sample of something stronger.

This is a free gift, made at the front end of a business to draw in new customers.  It is like the generosity you see online, where people receive a pdf in return for their email address; a lead magnet.

But return to the Farmers’ Market and imagine you buy regularly from a stall, could be anything, let’s say cheese.  One day the stall holder slips in an extra portion of cheese, maybe a new line.

You can look at this in two ways.  It is an opportunity to try a new cheese and if you like it, you’ll buy some next time.  But maybe you have a budget and so if you buy the new cheese, you won’t buy your usual favourites.

Alternatively, this is a reward for your custom. The stall holder knows you like cheese and helps you extend your experience. They are building a relationship with you.  It’s not that you buy more, so much that they are less likely to lose your custom.  And of course you might recommend them to friends.

They might go further and invite you to a wine and cheese evening, no charge, for their regular customers.  They are rewarding you as a customer.  Stay with them and you’ll extend your experience of cheese (and wine), deepen your knowledge of cheese and meet others with similar tastes.

Value for the Client

You see the difference between the two approaches?  The first is a front end strategy, the second is back-end.  The cheese seller is aware they need to build a tribe of people who love cheese.  They see there is value in investing in their tribe.  These people become their ambassadors and so they want to offer something of value to show appreciation.

How to Get There

The rewards must be of real value to the client.  Normally, they are best if relevant to the business.  So, a cheese seller would try something cheese related.  They could give valued customers a box of chocolates.  This might be appreciated but it’s a bit random and diabetics who eat cheese instead of chocolates lose out.  You know your customers love cheese, so give them cheese!

You can develop a programme of rewards so as customers come closer and spend more, they receive more in return.  Or you may find there are times when an opportunity presents itself, perhaps you have more cheese than you can sell!

Your Offer

If you are a coach, be generous through your back-end.  These are sometimes called bonuses, which can be front or back-end.

Offer front-end bonuses with the package.  These are not really rewards because they are part of the package customers know they are purchasing.  It is worth noting affiliate marketers offer bonuses too for customer who order through them.

Back-end rewards are not advertised up front.  They could be a small gift as a sign of appreciation for their purchase, eg a book relevant to the topic of the coaching.  You could round up current and past clients and organise an event for them.  Whatever it is, make sure it is something they appreciate.

This is the ninth of 31 posts about elements of value.  Make sure you don’t miss any by signing up for the offer below.  The posts in this sequence can be accessed below:

• Social impact Self-transcendence
• Life Changing Provide Hope, Self-Actualisation, Motivation, Heirloom, Affiliation and Belonging
• Emotional Reduces Anxiety, Rewards Me

Next:  Nostalgia

+ 7 more

• Functional 14

What to do to Reduce Anxiety

Moving on with Elements of Value, from life changing to emotional values.  As we descend Bain’s pyramid, the scope of these values narrows.  Perhaps these next 10 values are about self-control.  They aim to help you follow the course you are on and not so much change course.  Remember, with emotional stability, we are more likely to make life changing decisions.   One important emotional issue is how to reduce anxiety.

What is It?

Anxiety is an emotion we all experience and sometimes find hard to name.  In the body it often accompanies tightening of the muscles on either side of the abdomen.  This correlates with taking part in any stressful activity, eg public speaking.

Different people are anxious about different things.  For example, public speaking energises me.  I often do my best work speaking and cannot remember a time I felt anxious about it.

On the other hand I find interacting with people much more stressful, often becoming tongue-tied or expressing myself badly.  This is odd because I can speak to an audience without a script but get anxious when speaking one to one.  So, this is not about rationality.  If your client is anxious about something, they may be aware it is irrational (I am) but that doesn’t really help.

Value for the Client

The aim according to Bain is to help the client worry less and feel more secure.

Worry builds into stress and so anxiety is often a prelude to stress.  Strengthening resilience may be important.  Social meetings make me anxious but I go to them.  If anxiety means we stop doing things, it becomes a serious problem.

I don’t generally worry about meetings.  I’ve been to hundreds and know what to do.  I still feel anxious but I don’t worry.  What I have to do is find a purpose so that I don’t spend all the time hiding in a corner or seeming bad-tempered.  Public speaking can provide the role I seek, for example.

Feeling secure, perhaps better termed confidence, is where we are not obsessed by what can go wrong and can actually function.  We all have coping strategies and perhaps to be more effective we need to change them.  This is the role of a coach, to help the client work out the most effective way they can use their strengths to bolster their weaker aspects.

Your Offer

This may be stress coaching but I find, as a marketing coach, elements of reducing anxiety are necessary.  Sometimes we find workarounds together.  Maybe some clients need more specialist help.

One of my roles as a coach is to help clients name their problems and if it is anxiety we can look at the specifics together and work out support the client needs.

I suspect most coaches need to reduce anxiety because it is a common reason clients do not perform at their best.

This is the eighth of 31 posts about elements of value.  Make sure you don’t miss any by signing up for the offer below.  The posts in this sequence can be accessed below:

• Social impact: Self-transcendence
• Life Changing: Provide Hope, Self-Actualisation, Motivation, Heirloom, Affiliation and Belonging
• Emotional: Reduces Anxiety

Next:  Rewards Me

+ 8 more

• Functional 14