Exactly What Value Are You Adding?

I want to take you by surprise today. Tell us exactly what value you're adding. Right now. Whatever is your preoccupation, we want you to answer that question. Listen, if your assessment is that you're not sure what value you're adding, please just stop! You're wasting our time. And yours, too!

I ask this question against the backdrop of the quantum of shoddy services being rendered out there. It is mind boggling! Simply try to obtain any service or buy something and someone will just quickly annoy you!

We should stop and ask ourselves why services are the way they are? People promise so much and deliver so little. Crap! We should promise little and deliver much more. We should pleasantly surprise the customer, not annoyingly surprise them!

Look, living is about value addition. If you're not adding value, you should simply...and leave us alone! You have no business selling any goods or services if you're not prepared to add value to the lives of customers. “You never lose value adding value,” says Bishop David Oyedepo. True, instead you gain value.

For those about to start a business or service, don't even try unless you have a value proposition. We've simply had enough! I tell you, there is less opportunity out there to create new services than there is in correcting existing bad services. It is the unique edge and flavour that you bring to the market that will make room for you. Trust me.

There's plenty of opportunity right now, I tell you. Shoddiness in the performance of one person naturally creates opportunity for someone else. What you need to do is to dig deep within you to mine out the innovation that customers are yearning for. If you die right now with your innovative gifts, God will be angry with you. Don't dare die now. You can't face His questions!

Are clothes not worn every day by all of us? Aren't there already millions of tons of clothes hanging in wardrobes around the world? Yet, creative and innovative stylists and designers are expanding the frontiers of the clothing business and making people snatch new clothes as though they were naked. The value these creators add make people feel naked every day when actually we have dresses we've not worn in two years!

Likewise, there're many cars in the world, but manufacturers constantly invent and create innovations that titillate the tastes of discerning consumers all the time. These people constantly come up with new 'originals' that drive us crazy. All they do is sit down and do a little thinking, something many of us find too hard to do. Thinking! It's too much work for some of us.

You see, originality is not hard to create. When you add a little extra value to what already exists, voila! You've created a new original. All successful entrepreneurs are driven by a desire to add value. It is called the cutting edge. Your business cannot arrest the hearts and minds of customers if it lacks a cutting edge.

Let me illustrate this further with a product that has what I consider to be a very sharp cutting edge—in fact, it is cutting the world crazy! We have seen the emergence of varieties of mobile phones in the market. The modern handphone engages us in a manner nothing else does. But, as far as I am concerned, the modern Android Phone simply stands out.

Who knows, it may soon be overtaken by the unlimited innovativeness of man’s mind, but today, when I hold one, I actually have in my hand an efficient phone, a telephone directory, a fax machine, a calendar, an organizer, a high resolution camera and video machine, a photo album, a dictionary, a Bible, a calculator, a torchlight, electronic books, a memo pad, social media platforms, my mobile bank, and the internet at my beck and call, to mention a few of its amazing features.

For this amount of value, people are ready to pay whatever the price is. That's why young Chinese will queue overnight for the latest version. That's why we become ‘abnormal’ without our mobile phones. Value is the soul of entrepreneurship.

Let me emphasise that our focus should be to provide services that qualitatively meet customers' needs, not necessarily to bag the quantum of profit we have set as a target for ourself. When people unduly place profit before service, there's a strong tendency for them to veer into corner-cutting, manipulation, and cheating to actualise their desire.

When a service meets people’s need, profit follows automatically. No one is looking for somebody to dash their money. They're looking for someone who can solve their problems, someone who'll make them happy. They're willing to part with their money once they're happy.

Therefore the best time to think about higher profits is when your customers are happy and basking in the value your service provides—when you've literally trapped them! The happier they become, the more money you can make off them. You see, the money you're looking for is in somebody’s pocket. Find a way to take it without stealing it. Feed them plenty of value; they'll empty their pocket!

Understand that, ultimately, people pay for their happiness, not your product or service! It is called trading value.

So what value are you bringing to the market today?

(Culled from my book, Take That Action!)