Wherever we are (business or employment market), how much people are willing to pay for what we have to offer will be determined by 3 factors:

1. The need for what we do
2. How good we are at doing it
3. The difficulty to replace us.

These are true for both professional & personal lives.

1. The need for what we do

How many people need the products or services that we offer? The higher the number of people who need what we have to offer, the higher they will be willing to pay for it. How to be sure we offer what people need?

Any products or services offered should serve as a solution to solve people’s problems. Look around & see what problems people face. Create something that will solve that problem. People always need the solution to their problems.

Basically, people’s needs are; Physical needs (convenience, time (speed), money, material matters), emotional needs (feel good, special, sence of significance, sense of security, excitement) Mental Needs (challenge, sense of growth, mental stimulant) and Spiritual Needs (sense of security, acceptance, calmness, sense of contribution).

People’s needs are also seasonal. Be alert of what is going on around us and keep on asking the question, what are their problems & how can we solve their problems?

Marketing is about studying these needs and strategizing how to reach and communicate what you can offer to meet those needs.

2. How good are we at doing it

Unless we are offering something that is exclusive and can be offered by us and us only, we will have competition. How much people will be willing to pay will depend on the quality of your product & services. How good are we in delivering our goods? Is it as good as or better than others? The higher our quality comparing to others’, the higher is our worth in customer’s eyes. Rule of thumb is, the more competitors we have the better we have to be. Don’t just do it, do it better than others.

3. The difficulty to replace us

If whatever we offer can be replaced by anybody; nobody will be willing to pay high price for it. Here are some tips on how to make our products and services not easily replaceable:

• Solutions to physical needs are easily replaceable. So differentiate our selves by providing solution to emotional needs.
• Good close personal relationship most often satisfies the needs for connection, sense of significance, trust, even the feel good factor, which is not easily replaceable.
• Work on constantly improving the quality of our products and services. Keep on providing top quality to be the chosen one, but most of all, keep on building close personal relationship to appeal to emotional needs (the intangible needs, the X factor) to make ourselves irreplaceable. Keep on looking for that opportunity to make our every encounter with our clients (internal and external) as personal as possible.
• Look for secondary needs that can be met to give us that competitive edge. Look at how restaurants add value by offering home delivery, faster service and even premium items on the side. What can we do / offer to provide that value added proposition to our primary product and / or services?

Puan Jay
August 2010

All the talk and preaching about strategic intent is futile if the the CEOs and the senior management cannot get their people to put their intent into action. Even providing more training (and I am a Training Consultant…) will not help if it does not translate into practice. Turning strategic intention into action must go beyond the normal approach of merely talking about vision, strategy and organizational realignment.

In my experience working with organisations achieve their goals, there are 6 main enabling factors that must be present for any strategic intention to work:

1. LINKING COMPETENCE TO PERFORMANCE

Competence does not always translate into performance. Just because somebody KNOWS HOW to do something does not mean he/she WILL DO it.

The main cause of failure we see in implementing improvement initiative is because the staffs do not change the way they perform the job; thus do not produce different result. It is common for managers to diagnose the situation as lack of skill to do it and send for training. A detailed diagnosis of the situation may reveal the real reason why a person id not doing what they are supposed to do.

2. LINKING COMPETENCE TO RESOURCE / SUPPORT

Other than competence in skills, knowledge and experience, resources such as materials, equipment, systems and financial support also determine the overall ability of a person to do the job efficiently.

The staff’s may have all the skills required, but system breakdown, lack of computers, printers, and problems in delivery system will frustrate the staff and create a big gap in service quality. No amount of smiles and courtesy will be able to make up for the stress and frustration experienced by the customers and employees due to lack of support in resource areas.

Thus improving the skills, knowledge or experience will not result in an increased level of performance if the other resources are not available to support improvement initiatives.

3. ASSIGNING RESPONSIBILITY WITH AUTHORITY

In many organisations, delays and frustrations are caused by the time and effort spent to get the approval from the superiors and subject to layers of checking. Too many lost opportunities and time wasted while waiting for multiple analysis to be conducted and decisions to be made.

As organisations expand, tasks and span of responsibilty at every level also expand. While senior management may delegate responsibilities to operational people, they are often reluctant to delegate proper amount of authority to enable these people to carry out their work speedily and effectively. Without the appropriate level of authority, operational people end up getting caught up in non-value-added functions which are essentially administrative in nature. Thus, they spend time writing memos to one party after another to seek approvals, and less time is spent in actual system implementation, improvements to work or customer service, or coming up with new products or services. Strategic initiatives that were intended to improve service and performance may never achieve its goals and objectives.

4. ALIGNING PERFORMANCE TO REWARD

The motivation to perform will depend on people’s performance reward expectations. Very often, employees compare themselves with their peers in in the company and perceive those with higher rewards to have performed better. Of course, rewards can be both monetary and non-monetary.

There are many ways for this misalignment to happen. A new recruit with the same level of responsibility could come in with a higher salary. A company may have a policy of rewarding employees based on ranks; despite the difference in performance. Even when there is no difference between good, better and excellent performance, the company risks having employees who will not go for excellence, despite their capability.

Employees’ commitment and motivation to perform will remain as long as they see reward is aligned to performance. Without any direct linkage to reward, it is difficult for the employess to remain committed and motivated in performing a job, especially when they have to face resistance or problems.

5. RESPONSIBILITY WITH INFORMATION

Information is vital to ensure that the right things are done in the right manner at the right time. Very often, information is given out according to a hierarchy, rather than based on needs.

Delayed, distorted, incomplete or erroneous information will affect performance. People should have access to the information necessary for them to carry out their work effectively. Mechanisms that allow information to flow freely to those who need to perform the tasks need to be created (or asssesed). Question to ask: Do those who need to perform the task have access to all the information they need to do it? Is the available information correct, complete and on time?

6. REALITY VS PERCEPTION

Many management decisions are made based on perception rather than on the hard facts of reality. Many decisions are swayed by powerful figures or influential personalities. Experts in certain fields often carry their influence over to areas in which they have no expertise. And people could just win an argument simply because they are good at talking and arguing, although those arguments may be based on personal opinion only.

Some organisation just refused to accept the hard facts of reality. One organisation I know enlisted 3 different companies to do the research on the actual state of affairs in the organisation and recommend intervention strategies. All 3 companies came up with the same result. In the end, all the 3 results were thrown out and the top management decided to implement their original strategies; formulated based on their own perception of reality.

Puan Jay
August 2010