November 6, 2017
How do you wow?
Long time reader Scott Gould recently turned me on to the work of Joseph Pine (JP wrote the forward for SG’s new book The Shape of Engagement).
I wasn’t familiar with Pine’s work, so Scott pointed me at a TED talk from 2004 entitled What Customers Want.
To say that this talk blew my mind would be an understatement. After taking copious notes on the talk, and reading a bunch of Pine’s articles on the Harvard Business Review site, I ended up ordering four of his books on Amazon.
Pine has been writing about the source of economic value creation for decades. His insights map to my experience and his frameworks give structure to my anecdotal experience. It’s powerful stuff for someone who is laser-focused on value-based pricing.
I expect to be lost down the rabbit hole on his work at though the holidays, at least. Obvs, I’ll report my findings as they emerge :-)
In the meantime, here’s one tidbit from the TED talk linked to above that resonated with me immediately. Pine kicks of with a discussion of the “Progression of Economic Value” which he breaks into four phases:
- Commodities—Things we extract from the ground. Formed the basis of the agrarian economy for millennia.
- Goods—Stuff we make out of commodities. Made possible by the industrial revolution. Lasted about 50 years before goods became commoditized.
- Services—Goods that are customized. Think, “choose your plan” long distance telephone service and “have it your way” fast food counter service.
- Experiences—Services that are individualized. This level is the newest so there aren’t tons of examples. To me, the one blazingly obvious one is Disney parks once they released the Magic Band.
Pine’s clients are megacorps for whom customization is a very difficult thing. For solo operators, individualized customization is much easier but still a challenge. The allure of “scaling” can be antithetical to customization, even in a single person company.
Here are some insights relevant to folks like us:
- An individual is multiple markets
- Customer’s don’t want choice
- Authenticity is source of value
I look forward to fleshing these out for you (and me!) over the coming weeks. In the meantime, let me ask you this:
How could you make a client exclaim “Wow”?
Hit reply and let me know :-)
Yours,
—J