How to Build a Tribe

How do you increase life? How do you increase the value of the products that you're selling?

Hello virtual entrepreneurs and join me on this new episode of the virtual entrepreneur, I am your host, or bet innocent and today we are talking about how to increase value for your customers through your products and your business.

If you're new to this podcast, welcome.

One of the key things that we had been talking about in the past few episodes was the book, The Science of Getting Rich and we explored a lot of concepts in that book. And we summarised it, and use those notes and looked at them through the lens of an entrepreneur who wants to start a business, and scale it and have an impact, impact the customers and the partners who come to work with that business.

And so today what we are doing is we are going and taking one key concept that we discussed in those notes, and we are really exploring and taking a small but very important action to getting good results.

So, the book talks about the concept of increasing life, and what this means for us is how to increase the value of what you're offering to your customers. Right. And so what we are doing here is, essentially, we are taking a same product that we are selling the same services that we are offering, but we are increasing value.

And we increasing value.

By the way we present the product, by the way, we reduce any unnecessary things that stand in the way of the customers getting a result.

If you've been in the online industry, you'd know that these loads and loads of coal causes, right, there's a lot of courses that you can go and take and learn a tonne. But a lot of people would go into those online courses, and never quite complete them.

Right.

And this is an example of these small inconveniences that gets in the way of customers getting results, and these online courses are just one simple example, there's a lot of things, even offline. There's a lot of solutions out there, but a lot of the time the customer would go and they'll buy it.

And they just wouldn't be able to complete and get a satisfactory result. And so what you're doing today here is we're discussing how to increase life or in this case value for your customer for your ideal customer.

So, there are three key things that I really involved in creating value for your ideal customer, and the way we can look at this is first is knowing where your customer is on their customer discovery journey, right.

Every customer online or offline is on the journey to discovering you, and the solution you offer that can help them with a very specific need or problem, they are facing. Right. And so, as knowing where the customer is on this journey, allows us to speak with them in a way that they can hear us and understand what we're trying to say to them.

The next thing is, how can we help them with where they are on the journey that they're on. Right. And that essentially is a goal of a marketer or a salesperson.

How can we help them with where they are.

And then the last thing that I think is really important as well here is understanding the difference between marketing, sales, and closing.

Right.

I think those three things are significantly different. And depending on our understanding of this, it can really determine how well and effectively we are able to communicate with our ideal customers.

So with that said, one of the biggest things that we're going to start with is looking at where is your customer, on their customer discovery journey.

So, what. And this is usually called hot, warm or cold traffic. Right. And, essentially, in a nutshell, when the traffic is cold.

We say the customer is furthest in their journey, they have yet to understand that there's a lot of things and solutions that can help them with their problem. So if we take the example of a new entrepreneur looking for a business coach.

Right.

and they may not know that they need a business coach. All they know is they may be lacking motivation, the business has been working in operational generating sales, but they may feel that they lack motivation, or they lack the necessary skill to inspire their teams to provoke to create those results that they can write, or they may feel that they are failing to hit their targets their goals. And

so, they may be having these problems but not know that there is a solution.

Right. And so what happens is, what happens is your customer has a problem, but they don't know that the solution, or that you are providing the coaching the solution. Right. And so this could be considered a cold traffic or cold leads. Right.

And then, next will be the warm traffic or warm leads. And what this would be is customers or the entrepreneurs who know that their business isn't performing as well as it could. Or that they need, you know, to inspire their team.

They have identified that this is a problem. Right, lack of inspiration, lack of performance, right, not being able to hit those target goals is a problem with identifying that, now they're looking for. For this solution.

So they may be looking at what the other intrapreneurs doing. And so there will be warm traffic because they know they have a problem, and they know there is a solution. So they're looking for the solution. And then that will be the hot traffic, which will be.

These are businesses that are performing, or they're not performing, but they know that courting will definitely give them the result they want, and they've been looking to different they've, they've even tried several types of coaching or several coaches to give them the result that they're looking for.

So if your customers are anywhere on this journey, which they are at any one time, through their buying cycles, they are on this journey, right, and for us intrapreneurs understanding where the is very important because the language we use to communicate to them is very, very different, depending on where they are right.

It doesn't make any sense for a client, or an entrepreneur, a customer who is experiencing a problem, and we are just busy talking about our really cool solution. They don't even know that the solution is for them, doesn't make any sense. They are thinking of the problem.

You may be thinking about the solution the benefits, but they still don't even know how your solution can help them, you must first start by addressing the problem, right. So now that we know that this hot, cold, and warm traffic.

The next thing becomes how do we increase the life for ideal customers wherever they are on their customer journey, right. So if we take a look at the cold traffic. All we know is the problem.

And one of the biggest thing that I'm seeing in the world of entrepreneurship and businesses is that when the traffic is called the most essential and simple step that we can take to help our customer is to educate them, to educate them on the problem that they're facing, educate them that is a solution to that problem to take them from thinking about the problem to thinking about okay what are the next steps to get rid of the problem.

And that is to get the solution and that is a very significant step, even though it's very logical to think that, you know, the customers if they have a problem that they should be.

They should be seeking the solution, but usually, that's not the way we talk about these things. And here's a funny example.

When you have pain.

Anyway, back pain, shoulder pain, knee pain. You go to the doctor and the first thing you say is, I am feeling pain on my knee, or I am feeling pain on my back. Right.

And usually, the reason why we just go and start talking about the problem is the one thing that we know. We don't go and ask for specific painkillers that are designed for your back or for your knee. We don't even know if those things are real or they exist over they get the oil if needed, they can help us.

We, we can't even begin to formulate those thoughts to create those thoughts of a specific solution yet. So for us as entrepreneurs, it's so simple and easy sometimes to just go and jump at a customer, and tell them, hey, this solution is what you need, but that is completely the opposite of what we're supposed to do. Right. We start by educating them about the problem.

Right. And so, by increasing to increase value to our customer is to educate them in the problem well, so that even if they do not buy from us, wherever they go and buy. They understand what they're buying.

But they're also buying with a knowledge that is more useful, because in the world of business there are businesses, or there are people who are just creating this content and taking advantage of the fact that this lack an ignorance of knowledge, right.

And so creating value essentially for us here what it means is giving our customer, the right knowledge for them to take positive action,

right, because this is powerful, right, it's transformational, you are helping someone overcome a significant problem in life. And I think that is a very powerful position to be and not do justice for them not to abuse. Not to help them not help them properly is essential to abuse, a power that you have been given to help another person.

And I think as intrapreneurs we have to think that we have to understand that if we are not helping them, then it's best maybe we step aside and let someone else help because to do otherwise is to abuse the entrepreneurship power that comes with being able to create solutions and provide solutions to people to customers when they need them.

Right. And so education becomes the first step if the customer is cold.

If the customer is very further on their journey. And if the customer is in the middle if the customer is warm.

They understand that they have a problem, they understand that the he's a solution. Then, the key thing here for us, the best way for us to add value for them to increase life for them as the book will call increasing life would be to remove any unnecessary roadblocks.

Right, so they can go about taking that positive action, right, to remove any inconveniences, because in some cases, the customer is already experiencing pain.

And the best thing they can, they need is a relief.

Right. And so by removing any of the roadblocks, we are able to give them that relief that they need.

And again, this shows the power of entrepreneurship. This shows the power that comes with being a business owner.

Right, so removing those roadblocks and any inconveniences.

Right. So, after that the next thing becomes when the customer is hot, which means they know the problem they know the solution. And there's a chance that they know you exist, and you provide a very specific solution that they need, but they may not have bought the solution yet, they may have tried several other solutions from several other vendors were providing to the exact same problem.

And they may have tried the solutions in getting and got a really terrible horrible experience. And so for us here, the key important step becomes installing belief, back into themselves to believe that they can relieve that pain.

They can, they can overcome that problem. They can attain the result that they want because in some cases, the result is better health. In other cases, it's a belief that they can create the life that they want.

And sometimes one of the biggest things as intrapreneurs that we forget, which I find quite sad that we forget it, but it's the idea that when you help one person transform their life, we forget how powerful that transformation, the ripple effect it has not just on that one person, but on the people that comes into contact with that person.

When you improve the life of one person, then chances are you've improved, you have improved the life of a lot of people that will follow that person. And that is a very very powerful position to be in.

And to do injustice to them, to abuse that power.

It seems like a very, it's a waste in so many ways, that there is no benefit or logic, or anything that comes from quick gains.

That leaves a lot of people in worse situations than they were.

Right. And so what I want to come back here to can't wait to summarise what I've been saying here is, so that the customer really is on a journey to discovering you. The first stage of the journey is their code, and all they can think of is the problem, their code, all they can think of is the problem. The next stage of that, of this journey is they are warm, and all they can think of is the solution.

The solution, they know the problem, and all they can think of now is the solution. And the stage after this is that they are hot, and all they can think of is the benefits that come to the solution because they probably have been cheated, they probably have been lied to. They probably had been for sold through false advertising. Overpromised and under-delivered right solutions.

I mean there are solutions out there that are over-promising and under-delivered, and I'm not going to try and name anything this is not the point of this episode. The point here is to acknowledge that your customer has probably been hurt by other people. And you are providing more than just a product, when you're helping them, you are providing a belief that it is good, a belief that they can change the situation they're in, and the belief in themselves, to try again just once more.

Right, because if you're a coach who is coaching, athletes, an injury does a lot on the minds on the body, and being able to give someone that belief means that they can get back up, literally, not just mentally But literally, and some of the biggest challenges that we face as humans is that our mental blocks right, you get into this problem that creates a mental block and ruins your pattern of thinking.

Right.

And so we need someone to come and correct that. And the solution is that intrapreneurs and business owners built, have the power to transform that mindset to shift it. I want to give you an example very very quickly. In my earliest days in business. I was trying to understand how a sales funnel works, and I had done a tonne of research, I had research I've read, I had read every single blog.

And then by some miracle, or by some accident, I don't know what you want to call it. Right.

I came across this blog, and it was explaining how a sales funnel works, how a sales process works. Right. It explained to me that the idea is to take a customer, and lead them into making a purchase.

And that was in the photography business and all I ever thought before that was just taking beautiful photos, and yes, beautiful photos did bring me a lot of customers, they did bring me profitable businesses, wanting to do work with me, but I wanted to create a consistent generation of customers coming to me. And so this sales process became something that I needed.

And through my research, I came across an entrepreneur who wanted to help people small businesses grow. And I remember watching that video. And I got a sense of belief, not just that I could, I could do it, but I remember it was such a significant impact and shifting my mindset. To this day, I think of that experience.

It's the one little experience that has pushed me so far forward because I have seen how much it can influence me how much it can influence a small business owner who I was back then. Right.

It gave me this idea.

You can do more. You can achieve more, and it's an all it was it was a product being sold to me.

Right. It was a product being sold to me, but it was being sold in a way that was transformational.

Right. And this is what do we mean here. It was offering me more value than I ever thought I could get, I could get from such a just a software company, right. And so that was a simple example there, but that has been the overall idea of what we mean here which is we need to increase value because our customers are people and depending on where they are. Our solution could be the one thing that significantly changes, not just their life.

But even the community around them. Right.

I had another simple example here and the example that I had was if you're doing coaching as an example. Right, so if your customer is at the cold stage then the best thing to talk about is, you know, you are addressing the problem that they're facing, for example, is your team not performing well, are you not, are you struggling to heat your tails to your sales target.

Here are the common reasons why. And then you're going from there all the way leading up to the solution. Right.

And if you're warm, then they probably have thought of being able to hit a sales target. They probably thought of the solutions, but they probably haven't thought of, you know, what's the best way and who provides who can provide them that specific solution, so they may be wondering, well how exactly can I hit my sales target.

How can I motivate my team, so that we can hit our sales target? I'm just using sales target as an example here, but the idea is the same.

Right.

And then if the customer is really hot, which means if the customer is, you know, they know the solution and they probably know you, then the chances are they've tried other coaches and the chance that the other coaches didn't help them as well as they thought they could have been helped. Right, and so it makes sense to start breaking down all of those addressing all of those earlier issues so that you can bring them to a new, you can give them a new opportunity to believe in themselves because I think in the world of business.

The biggest thing that we sell to our customers is belief.

All the products aside. The biggest thing that we sell to our customers is belief, and it's not belief in us. It's belief in themselves because people can do extraordinary things once they believe in themselves.

I'm gonna stop rambling here. Okay. I think that is asked for this episode.

As you can see I'm quite passionate about this topic, but I think that is us for this episode. And what I want you to do is I want you to look at your business or your job. And I want you to ask yourself, How can you add more value to the customers you're serving, and you can do this in a business or in a job.

Right. how can you add value, how can you increase life?

And you'll be surprised that you did not have to go and buy a jet engine to make your customers happy. It's the little things that show you've thought about them, you've considered them as a human being, and all you want is for them to just get the solution can be on the next step of their own journeys in their lives.

Listen, I want to thank you so much for joining us on this episode of the virtual intrapreneur, and I'll talk to you when our next episode.

And as always, Have a wonderful evening.