Value Added Service
Fired? Re-hire yourself, Report to work, And immediately start figuring out how to deliver value added services for your clients.
Today, in the age of the individual, we need to learn how to key into this emerging services level as it flows down from the big companies, through the medium and small companies to personal businesses.
With the reality of global economic recession all avenue to keep up being gainfully employed must be exploited. So it is time for me and you to take a lesson from the big companies a lesson that's true for anyone who's interested in knowing what it takes to stay employed in this period of global economic recession.
The management Guru Tom Peters, once said in his popular article "The brand called you" Regardless of age, regardless of position, and regardless of the business we happen to be in, all of us need to understand the importance of being our own CEO's individually, it's that simple and that hard.
The good news (and its largely good news) is that everyone has a chance to be of service. Service is the first law of success and everyone has a chance to improve and build up their skills and step up to offering value based or value added services.
You can do it, you can earn much more than you are currently earning. You can start now, if only you can apply what you are about to read in the book in front of you.
Today, according to "occupational outlook quarterly (writer 2005-06) over two -third of the US workforce is employed in producing and delivering services, not products. And, between 2004 - 2014, almost all the 19 million new jobs added in the US will be in services, not in goods - producing industries.
How much is your mental product or service worth?
What you get for your mental product or service depends entirely on your ability to sell it to the best advantage. Chances are there are many other people in your field and profession with no more education, skills, knowledge, experience, talents and ability than yourself but are paid ten, twenty or fifty more times than you or for a mental product or service no better than yours.
The reason is simple; they charge based on the value they deliver to their clients not on the time or effect or work done for the clients.
For example, if the average time to deliver on a service is 72 hours in a particular industry. And there is someone who can deliver the same quality or service or even better in less than 24 hours. He will definitely charge and justly earn more than twice the industry average price. He's no longer changing for the service but the added value of lesser time to deliver which also would have benefited clients one way or the other profitably.
Charging fairly
Success consists in realizing that you have it in you, that you are worthy to succeed, then carrying your qualities to the market for no matter how high the quality of your faculties and abilities may be, they do not spell success until you market them.
As a matter of fact, you do not actually sell your qualities. You merely sell ideas of the values they add to other people services or products. Success, again consists of selling your ideas of them rather than selling someone else's ideas of them.
A sale person does not sell so many barrels of oil, but certain ideas of them. The goods are delivered afterwards. A real estate agent does not sell a house, but an idea of a house. When you sell your services to a purchaser, you merely sell an idea of what your services will be worth to the firm. It is called "value proposition". You deliver the "goods" afterwards.
Value proposition hinges on a right idea of your goods or services and how to get that right idea across prospective buyer's mind. This resolves itself into the following formula:
How to sell the true idea of your best capabilities in the right field or market
There remains a bias to equate pricing with time, focus discussion on the points to the discussed below and avoid the "piece work" mentality. True value is hardly based on time or even effort.
Resist request to price-your time.
As you become more comfortable thinking of your contributions in terms of value, others will see them as more valuable. In fact, the less the time spent in delivering results, the higher the value of your services.
Remembers, price is what you pay, value is what you get, so that leads to the second part.
Develop your best capabilities to the highest possible degree
Talent(s) or natural abilities are no exceptions. In other words, Talent is never enough. Knowledge must be added to it, both factual and experiential. And to knowledge, Skills. It is after this processes that talent is turned into strength.
Strength in this context "is a consistently near perfect performance in an activity". So you owe yourself the responsibility of building your capabilities to the highest possible degree. Appraise your ability. Are you among some of the best at what you do? Can you accomplish quickly what it may take someone else extra time?
People who have ability usually have a way of making what they do look easy (think of David Beckam), but we all know it is not as easy as they make it look. So make sure you have an accurate appraisal of your abilities for pricing.
Learn to describe them
A value proposition is a clear statement of the tangible results a customer or a client can get from using your product or services. The more specific your value propositions, the better it is.
With today's tight economy and overburdened decision makers, you need to have a strong value proposition to break through the cluster and get their attention. That means you need a result oriented value proposition that speaks to critical issue they are facing. And, by including specific numbers or percentages you get the decision makers attention even faster.
There is the case of a president of a ½ billion dollar division of a major corporation who said if someone called her and said he could reduce her waste by just 1 percent, she'd meet with him immediately. When asked why? She said she knows how much her company spent on waste-and it was a big chuck of change. Every penny saved would go right to the bottom line as profit.
Strong value propositions deliver tangible results like (1) Increased revenue (2) Faster time to market (3) increased market share (4) Decreased employee turnover (4) improved customer retention levels. And so on...
Identify your market
Evaluate your intellectual property; this is the sum total of your education, experience and expertise in your field. Most of us severely underestimate this value mistakenly believing that "everyone" knows this or "anyone" could do that, the accurate knowledge after years in a discipline has tremendous value and establishes you as an expert.
List your areas of expertise and include them in your resume, marketing or sales pitch. Make sure you differentiate yourself in a crowded market place.
All that is left to do is to deliver the goods, to make prospective purchaser, customer, or client know that you are the person for the place, or that your goods will better fill his needs than any others.
Your success depends on your skill in discovering the open way of access to the prospects mind, then finding his particular point of interest in your proposition. In what way it can serve him and forward his interest. Having discovered this point, the next move is to illustrate your ability to help him achieve that point of interest until you can close the deal.
Suggestion is the supreme agent in these steps. It is present in your idea, your presentation, your words, your tones, your eyes, your gesture, your pose of body, your muscular tension, for these are all ways of expressing yourself - and it is ideas of yourself that you are selling.
Avoid antagonism, criticism and comparison when using suggestion. Suggesting to an employer that he needs and wants your services is far better than asking for a position. Take a look around you, in your town and in your state virtually all the companies you will tell you they have no vacant position to fill. I don't blame them no one wants more liabilities.
But look closely, they are all in dire need and search for ideas on how to add more value to their services and products, they are in need of ideas on how to increase their customer base and market share, how to increase profit, how to improve brand visibility, how to reduce cost and overhead and so on.
Just take a look around you whatever the business, be it educational institution, religious organizations, non-governmental organizations (looking for grants from all corners of the globe and looking for ways to make more impact with less money) even governments are looking for solutions to obvious problems citizenry every nation expect value from their leaders.
Russell H. Conwell once said "Greatness consist not in holding of some future office but really consists in doing great deeds with little means and the accomplishment of vast purposes from the private ranks of life. He who can give to his city better streets and better side walks, better schools and more colleges, hospital more happiness and more civilization, more of God will he great anywhere".
You don't have to be on somebody's payroll to produce and deliver Value based or Value added Service!
We all know the problems of our society, we can talk about it and analyze it to the greatest detail, but few people can come up with simple practical solutions. If you can, I bet that solution is of immeasurable value both in cash and kind, bring it on : The serious leaders in government are looking for people like you. You've got a value based service to offer!
Want to move up the corporate ladder?
Can you remember being asked the question "what can you do for us? When you were being interviewed for your present job! What answer did give then? Did you answer in terms of value? If not re-appraise yourself, conduct another interview for yourself and re-answer the question.
Now re-hire yourself and report to work a different employee (a value added and value base employee) and immediately start figuring out how to deliver value to the customer, and your organization.
Think in terms of tangible value based services, as described earlier. Take initiative and take responsibility. Initiative is the entering wedge. It finds something to do, finds a way to do it, and discovers a value in doing.
A person with initiative does not wait for opportunity, but finds and opens a door. If nothing is inside, knock on another until you find the right door. You make your own opportunity by using initiative. Opportunity is a favorable occasion, and opportunity comes through the channel of others.
First decide what you want, second, decide who can give it to you, third formulate a plan and exercise your initiative, and you will find that you make an opportunity everyday.
Answer these questions: what moves for self-betterment have you actually made in the past years? What opportunities have you found because of your own search? Are you ready to act when you see a chance? Do you feel that you possess initiatives?
You can work two ways at the art of getting there. One is to depend on your own knowledge and experience alone, the other is to add others knowledge and experiences. Having decided on the latter way, get your working plan in other. Utilize findings from successful people's experiences. Apply those principles to set your own needs. Those are only theories until you put them into operation for yourself.
Set a value on yourself, and constantly add to that value. It does not take any more breath to say a million dollars than it does to say ten cents. Others measure you at the value you set, and your facial expression is your price tag. Keep these facts in minds, and then dig. You are on your way to the top.
There is the story of one very effective salesman, who would ring the door bell and greet the owner of the house with these words: "We are the Bartell Music company we have learned through a friend of yours that you have a child the right age for taking music lessons". That first statement was an appeal to his prospective purchaser's vanity. If he had said "I am Jones, Agent for the Bartell Music Company," it would not have carried any weight, but the fact that the Bartell Music Company stood on the front porch waiting to ascertain her wants, with the readiness to satisfy them, was the opening wedge. This man eventually became the sole owner and proprietor of that business. He was saying it for ten years before he became it.
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Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Value Added Service